Mission: Kill the Royals
by Epicest of the Epic
Summary: AU. Takumi is the second prince of the Kingdom of Seika. Misaki Ayuzawa is the assassin sent by the king of Miyabigaoka to kill him and the rest of his family. But how do you get into a heavily guarded palace with walls all around? You dress up as a maid, of course.
1. Bad Impressions and Infiltrations

**DISCLAIMER: I don't own Kaichou wa Maid-sama or the cover image which is from the anime Black Butler.**

 **A/N: This is set in some kind of medieval alternate universe where the world is the same as ours except there are two new countries somewhere: Seika and Miyabigaoka, which are both a tiny bit like medieval England, mixed with Japan and a bit of modern stuff.**

 **Enjoy!  
**

* * *

"Don't kill me!"

The lady in the huge fuchsia ballgown backed away from me, into the corner of the large room.

I sighed and put my two knives back into my leather belt. Her terrified face relaxed ever so slightly. "I am here to relay a message from His Majesty the King," I told her calmly.

She nodded nervously. "O-okay. What is it that he wants to say?"

I took a deep breath. "He says that your debt hasn't been paid in the time that you agreed on, so you will pay him with your life."

Guilt fills my heart as her grey eyes widened and in a split second, my knives were back in my hands and slashed across her throat cleanly. She gasped and a cascade of crimson blood spilled out all over the elegant satin carpet. A quick and quiet death.

There was frantic banging on the door. Her servants? Relatives? Friends? It didn't matter, because I would be long gone before they got in. I ran towards the open window silently and slipped out into the night.

* * *

I woke up from the nightmare gasping. I tried consoling myself that it was just a dream, but I knew that it was real.

I've killed forty-one people. Twenty-eight men and thirteen women. I've never forgotten any of their names and I never will, not for the rest of my life. Killing is never justice, not even when the target is a criminal. I had considered committing suicide many times to end all that guilt, but then the same thought ran through my head: my mother, father and sister would be back begging on the street again, and I could never let that happen.

No matter how much injustice is in this profession, it is work. One has to work, because work makes money, and money keeps your family alive and healthy.

Working in this group of assassins wasn't as bad as working in other groups of assassins, if you wanted to be positive about it. The group that I worked in was called the Secret Assassin Association (SAA, in short) and we worked in secret for the king of Miyabigaoka. Whoever the king ordered to be killed was killed, whether it was a criminal or a nobleman that he was annoyed at. It was a corrupt system, but every time I killed a target, I was awarded a huge amount of cash. I always sent most of it to my parents, and kept just a little for myself.

This is the only profession that a peasant like me can do that earns so much money. I had been recruited on the street by a mysterious man one day when I was eleven and took the chance. I didn't tell my parents where I was leaving to because I was worried they wouldn't want the money if they knew where if came from. I only told my little sister Suzuna, who was sworn to absolute secrecy. I hadn't seen any of them since that day.

I was then whisked off to the quiet countryside of Miyabigaoka to be trained for the next four years of my life. When I turned fifteen, I started receiving missions.

I never failed a mission and I never gotten caught. Not once, in my thirty-seven missions in my two years. I slowly rose to be one of the top assassins in the Association. The missions started to get harder suddenly and it was becoming increasingly harder to not get caught. And my next mission was going to come any time now.

So that's how I found myself waiting alone in a tiny dark room in the missions base of an assassin group.

* * *

The door opened abruptly and bright hall light shone into the dark room suddenly. "Ayuzawa-san, report to the Mission Room," a deep voice said. I squinted in the direction of the light. A tall silhouetted figure stood in the arch of the door. "The chief wishes to talk to you."

I sat up in my bed and nodded. "Tell him that I'll be there in five minutes." He nodded back and left the room.

Yawning loudly, I heaved myself off my bed and groaned. My muscles ached from all the running I had to do when there was a lack of missions. I quickly got changed into my most formal outfit – a white button-down shirt under a black blazer and a black pencil skirt with black tights and black shoes. Most things I owned had to be black or dull earth tone colours, so that if something happened during whatever I was doing, I could get away without drawing too much attention to myself. I wasn't allowed any bright coloured clothes at all in my wardrobe. If I had any neon coloured clothing I would probably be kicked right out of the Association.

I speedily brushed my mid-length dark hair and washed my face. I had huge dark circles under my eyes, from the lack of sleep, which I ignored, and left the room, hoping I wasn't too slow. The Mission Room was downstairs and down a few maze-like corridors. I had been living in this underground settlement for two years now and still got mildly lost on some occasions.

The Mission Room was the most important room in the whole place and was heavily guarded by four gruff looking men dressed in dark purple and white, the national colours. Even with guards, there was a number code on the door. I showed my identity card to the guards who nodded, and I typed four numbers into the code bar: 8-6-3-5. It beeped and a green light flashed. With hard push, I opened the heavy door.

A shiver passed over me. The room was freezing as always from the constant air conditioning. Everything in the room was bare and white like a scientist's lab: the thick iron walls painted in white; the cold, white, tiled, hard floor; the dozens of white computers around the room; the pale white ceiling; the white, leather chair that a middle-aged man in a snowy white lab coat sat in, like a king. He had greying black hair and a serious face that was slightly wrinkled that held clear black eyes. Nobody except maybe the king, who the chief held in the greatest respect possible, knew his real name or age, or really much about him or his past. Nevertheless, he was hugely respected by everyone in the Association.

I bowed low to him. "Misaki Ayuzawa reporting for duty, Chief-sama."

He nodded, sending me polite acknowledgement. "I have your new mission. This time you will be going to another country."

I gaped at him. I was going overseas? To another country? I had never even thought of the possibility of being able to go overseas with this job. Hardly any peasants got to cross a border in their lifetime. "Are you serious?" I asked, getting excited.

The chief glared at me. "It won't be a holiday, it is work. Don't forget that." I remembered that the condition for being able to go overseas was to kill someone, and I bit my lip. He took an exaggerated breath and continued. "You will be going to the Kingdom of Seika. The journey is by carriage for five hours, until you reach Raven, the capital city of Seika. The target is _the Royal Family_."

I stared at him in utter disbelief and shock. How was I supposed to kill a royal family? Isn't that completely impossible? "W-what?" I managed to get out.

He ignored me and continued on. "You will kill King Richard VI, as your most important target. If you can, kill Prince Gerald as the second target and Prince Takumi as the third target. However, at least the King Richard must be killed or then the money will not come to you. The money that His Highness The King of Miyabigaoka offered is five million yen ( **$40000 or £25000** )."

That was a hell of a lot of money for one death, I had to admit. "Why would choose me for this important mission, sir? I only have two years experience."

"Why?" he repeated and hesitated for a second's thought. "Simply because right now you are the highest ranked female in the Association. Girls your age are much less suspicious than, say, a thirty year old man. Also, you have the right abilities. You are a fast and silent killer. And you fight with a knife, no? I couldn't let a gun user do this operation, because the palace is surrounded by busy markets and streets on all sides. If they were going to shoot from outside through a window, everyone would see. If they shot from inside, everyone would hear, since even with a silencer the gun will make some noise. Those are the reasons. We have thought this out a lot and really believe that you are the only one in the whole Association who has a chance of succeeding in this mission."

I wasn't really quite sure if I should be pleased with that compliment. "How would I get into the palace, though?"

He smirked back at me. "You chose the ninja training course, didn't you? You are supposed to be able to infiltrate easily. Decide yourself." I almost groaned at myself. I there were a many types of assassin training courses I could have initially chosen from, but as an eleven year old, I chose the ninja one because it sounded the coolest.

He passed me a thick envelope that said on the front:

 _TOP SECRET_

– _NOT TO BE BROUGHT OUTSIDE THE MISSION ROOM_

– _NOT TO BE PHOTOCOPIED OR PHOTOGRAPHED_

– _DO NOT TAKE ANY NOTES WHATSOEVER_

That was what was written on every mission pack. I anxiously teared open the envelope neatly and pulled out a huge wad of papers. On the first piece of paper, it said:

 _Mission: Kill the Seikan Royal Family_

 _Infiltrate Raven Palace and kill King Richard VI, Prince Gerald, and Prince Takumi._

Then there was a large sketch of the palace, drawn in plan view. There were guards stationed in every edge of the fence surrounding the palace. Outside the walls was a whole network of roads and markets in every direction. That meant no climbing walls. There were no trees in the whole town, except inside the palace grounds, meaning no climbing trees. What was left…disguise?

My thoughts pondered on it for a few seconds before I turned the page. A sketch of an old, bearded, fierce-looking man was on the top left.

 _Profile: King Richard VI of Seika_

 _Full name: Richard Walker_

 _Age (estimated): 76_

 _Gender: Male_

 _-Paranoid about assassins, will not go out of the palace and when he does, he will go extremely incognito. It is probably easier to kill him inside the palace._

 _-Cruel to peasants. He orders the hangings of any peasant who did even just a petty crime._

 _Profile: First Prince Gerald of Seika_

 _No picture found._

 _Full name: Gerald Walker_

 _Age (estimated): 21_

 _Gender: Male_

 _-Very ill with an unknown disease, rumoured to be dead within three years._

 _-Rarely seen in public._

 _Profile: Second Prince Takumi of Seika_

 _No picture found._

 _Full name: Takumi Walker._

 _Age (estimated): 17_

 _Gender: Male_

 _-Has never been seen in public._

 _Notes_

 _-You will use your own money for this mission, as so much money is coming to you afterwards that you will not need it._

 _-You will pay for your own carriage to take yourself to the city of Raven._

 _-Clothes for you will be paid for. You will be given plenty of clothing to seem like a normal new person in Raven._

 _-The mission may take a little while to find the perfect time when you kill him, as he is guarded very well._

 _-Ayuzawa is permitted to use her own name – Misaki Ayuzawa – because it is a long-term mission where it requires to talk to several people and it would be easier and safer to use this name rather than a fake name._

 _-Two weapons will be provided: the knife she usually uses, to keep in a thigh knife holster, and a Swiss Army Pocket Knife._

I packed up the pages, put them neatly inside the envelope and handed it back to the chief, who motioned one of the servants to put it on the shelf.

"Good," he said with a slight smirk. "Your mission starts at dawn tomorrow."

* * *

"Market Street, miss," the driver's cheerful voice called from the front. I opened the door and struggled to yank my large bag out the door. When I had finally got it out, I stumbled to the front where I thanking the driver and handed him a handful of cash. He nodded in thanks and drove off.

I was slightly annoyed at the Association. They didn't give me one of their own carriages and made me pay for one, with the excuse that it would look more 'ordinary'. They didn't even give me any money, saying that I should use my own, since I would earn lots of money afterwards anyway.

However, they did give me plenty of new clothes and things. Most were earth tone long skirts or fashionable airy blouses. The long skirts were to cover my thigh knife holster – straps around the thigh with a long saggy pocket to hold a knife. It felt really uncomfortable and it was a tiny bit difficult to walk and run with it. The airy blouses were to hold the Swiss Army Pocket Knife. Both weapons were very lightweight. The knife was nine inches, had a steel blade and a black leather sheath. The pocket knife had a large blade, small blade, screwdriver, nail file, saw, ruler, scissors, pliers, mini torch, magnifying lens, can opener, corkscrew, multipurpose hook, glass breaker, tweezers, toothpick, ballpoint pen, and a digital clock.

I took a breath and started to walk through the street full of market stalls towards the palace which was perhaps a bit over one kilometre away. The market was bustling with people of all ages and genders and sizes, buying or selling in small stalls which sold everything, from necklaces to vegetables, from omelette rice to…apples.

You could say that I have a crazy obsession with apples. When I was really little, before we were dirt-poor, my mother used to always cut them in bunny shapes and my sister and I would get excited and happy every time. I hadn't had the luxury to have an apple for about three years now. After all, apples were extremely hard to find in the hot climate of Miyabigaoka.

There was only one small bowl of apples left. My feet began to take my to the stand, I could almost feel the apple's taste...

Someone's hand was on top of mine, which was on top of the apple. It was a strange sensation, the warmth of the person's hand and the coolness of the apples.

Wait, someone's hand was on top of mine? I squeaked and slapped the person's hand away.

"ACKK! WHAT – WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT ARE YOU TRYING TO HIT ON ME YOU ARE AREN'T YOU?" I yelled, raising my arms defensively and looking up at the person.

He was tall, with a lean build yet had some muscles in just the right places. He sported a brown peasant's travelling cloak but underneath the hood, a tuft of spiky honey-blonde hair popped out over some bright emerald eyes and a gorgeous face.

I took this change to ogle at him for a couple of seconds; I had never seen anyone on the earth as handsome as this guy.

"Actually I just felt like eating an apple…" he said in a monotone voice and turned towards the stall again. I felt either relieved or disappointed – I wasn't quite sure – and regained my voice.

"Oh, well…I want the apples too," I snarled, switching to my competitive mode. "I saw them first."

He shrugged and started to walk away in a not-very-bothered manner. "It's just apples. You can have it. I'll go somewhere else." He turned. I felt anger rising up and my face burning. I was so very obviously challenging him, why wouldn't he take them? Now I didn't feel like I had earned them.

"Well, now I don't feel like I want them. Thanks very much, idiot!" I yelled.

He turned and walked back, shrugging again. "Alright, then I'll take them."

My annoyance level had reached its limit. "No, I want them now."

The guy arched an eyebrow at me. "It's just apples...you can have them…"

I glared at him in utter irritation and turned to the girl managing the stand, who looked very flustered and uncomfortable. "Do you have any more? If I get the apples and this idiot doesn't, I'll be really irritated."

The girl shook her head. She had strangely unique dark pink hair that she wore in pigtails. "I'm sorry."

I sighed in annoyance. "Fine, he can have them."

He shook his head. "You seem like you are really craving them. Just take them."

"No! It's yours," I snapped, putting my hands on my hips.

"I'm walking away," said the guy.

"No."

"No?"

"No."

"I'm confused…?" the fruit stand girl mumbled. "I've had people fighting over the last fruit before, but never fighting over not having it…"

I winced at my stupidity and turned to the girl. "I'm sorry about that. Sometimes I get a bit weird. Er...I'm Misaki Ayuzawa."

"I'm Takumi Usui," the voice behind me said. I spun around, feeling infuriated again.

"Did your pea sized brain not realise that I was not talking to you?" I retorted.

His face was completely blank. "Oops," he said in a flat voice. I realised that he was probably just trying to wind me up. I had never felt like punching someone as much as now. He smirked at me and walked away.

I took a deep breath to calm myself down and turned back to the girl. "I'm Misaki Ayuzawa. Nice meeting you."

I held out my hand, which the girl took with a smile. "I'm Sakura Hanazono. That's Shizuko." She pointed to the back of the shop where a girl with short hair and glasses was moving boxes of peaches. Shizuko gave a small wave at me and continued her work. "I'm kinda impressed with you. You had an argument with _Usui-kun_. He is a bit famous around this part of town." She leaned closer, over the display table. "They say he works in the castle as a footman. You know, since he's been seen coming out the castle through the servant entrance."

I raised my eyebrows in surprise. That rude guy? I almost snorted. "Well, I wouldn't know since I'm new here." I held up my big leather bag to show her. "Do you know where I might get a job? I'm a bit low on money." I made a sheepish grin, since I had not really brought enough money to get a place to stay and be able to get a carriage back to the base, since most of my earnings went to my family.

She thought for a second. "Well…there's a job audition today for the role of a parlour maid, at the palace. It's really difficult to get in, though." She fished around a bit and found a poster, handing it to me. In big letters it said:

 _ON THE 12_ _TH_ _OF MARCH AT 2:00 PM, WE ARE LOOKING FOR  
ONE NEW PARLOUR MAID TO WORK AT RAVEN PALACE._

 _A PARLOUR MAID IS THE MAID THAT SERVES THE TABLE AND ANSWERS THE CALLING BELLS WHEN RUNG._

 _IF YOU CAN READ THIS POSTER AND ARE A YOUNG WOMAN FROM THE AGES OF 16 – 28,  
YOU ARE QUALIFIED TO TRY OUT FOR THE POSITION OF A PARLOUR MAID._

I would get a bit of money, plus my mission would succeed. I smiled at Sakura who beamed back. "This is perfect!"

* * *

"Miss, before you enter the palace we have to pat you down in case you have explosives," said a blonde guard wearing the national colours, green and yellow.

I bit my lip in panic. I wasn't worried about the pocket knife, because I had shoved it down my bra earlier, but what if they found my other knife? They already started patting me down and a few seconds later found something bumpy on my leg: the thigh knife holster. "Miss, what is this?" I stood there for seconds thinking of what I could do, but there was no choice. He looked at me expectantly. Wincing, I bent down and put my arm up my skirt, pulling out the knife. The other girls and women in the line gasped and some squeaked. The guard arched an eyebrow at me and took the knife to inspect it. "…steel blade, leather sheath, nine inches? What's a nice lady like you got with this?"

"It's purely for self-defence, sir," I mumbled through my lies. "I have gotten mugged three times in my life."

He looked at me with pity. "You poor thing." He thought for a second and bent closer to me. "I'm supposed to confiscate this for good, but – just because you're super cute – if you get through the test and become a parlour maid, ask for Shiroyan. I'll give this back to you." He winked at me and I groaned at that idiot's utter stupidity.

There was a reason that he was supposed to confiscate this, and that's so terrorists and assassins don't do anything bad.

I gave him a (hopefully) cute smile of thanks and hid my triumphant smirk as I entered the dimly-lit room that was the palace hallway, ticking a box on the imaginary checklist in my mind.

 _Infiltration complete._

* * *

 **Yaayy! I've finished the first chapter. I hope you liked it :D Tell me if you want the chapters longer/shorter, whatever. Make sure to review since I usually delete my stories because of the lack of motivation xD**


	2. Maid Try-outs!

**DISCLAIMER: I don't own Maid-sama, as you've probably guessed already xD**

 **Also, some of the tests in the maid try-out copy some of the tests in the footman auditions from Maid-sama.**

 **Thanks for the amazingly awesome reviews for the last chapter, from MystearicaBlaze, Neo Eodieseo Watneunji, sugarandpepper, The Shadow Gryphon, shannon0502, IamGIO and FluffyMarryKozakura!**

 **I hope you like this next chapter :D  
**

* * *

I hate waiting.

While everyone in the servants' hall was talking loudly with each another, I stood there awkwardly in the corner, picking at my chipped nails and trying to not look too awkward, as I waited impatiently for someone to tell us what we were even doing.

The servants' hall was a massive room on the fourth floor of the palace, which must be the servants' floor. It was equipped with several long tables, benches, an empty fireplace and lots of comfy looking armchairs around the corners. It was probably where the servants spent their free time and meals. Surrounding the room were many wooden doors, which had to lead to all the bedrooms. This room was huge, but not nearly large enough to hold the masses of women that were constantly spilling into the room. Womenfolk of teen age and mid-twenties, tall or short, thin or not, were everywhere. I suddenly felt intimidated by the competition. What if I didn't get the job? What if someone was better than me?

I quickly brushed that thought away; my competitive instincts would never let that happen, not in a million years. If I saw that someone would be a better maid than me, I would knock them right out the competition.

A cute short lady with blue eyes and chin-length dark purple hair climbed onto one of the tables with some difficulty in her long blue dress, under a poofy maid's apron. "Hello everyone!" she shouted loudly. "Welcome! My name is Satsuki Hyoudou, the housekeeper, the head female servant." She made a cheerful smile. "If you are not a female or not between the ages sixteen and twenty-eight, please leave before we find out. Thank you! So, in a few minutes, the try-outs will begin.

"So, a parlour maid is the maid that, as her most important role, serves lunch, dinner and afternoon tea to the masters. She also cleans and tidies reception rooms and living areas at morning. She will tidy studies and libraries, and, with footmen, answer bells calling for service. The parlour maids are the highest ranking and highest paid maids in the household. They also get the nicest type of work." There was some excitement at that statement. "They are ranked above the chamber maid, the laundry maids, and the kitchen maids. The lowest position is a scullery maid, who washes dishes. Here at Raven Palace, we always keep the same ratio of maids: eight parlour maids, eight chamber maids, eight laundry maids, eight kitchen maids, and four scullery maids. Due to insufficient work of one of the last parlour maids, we are looking for a replacement.

"The first test is _speed_. As a parlour maid must be able to get to a master's room when rung for, under a minute, she must be speedy. The first test will be to run around the whole palace three times. The first thirty get in. It is an estimated three kilometres. Line up at the servants' entrance where you all initially came through. The race starts in five minutes. If you don't get given the form at the end of the race, you can go home and try again another time. Good luck!" She got off the table and walked off into another room.

There was a silent pause throughout the room before it turned into a scramble to the door we had come in by. Everyone was pushing and shoving to get through that tiny doorway. I cursed as I realised that I was at the back of the crowd of frantic women. I tried to push through the mob but they pushed and shoved me back. I eventually gave up and patiently waited for them to get through the door, when the disorderly queue started to move again.

A relieving blast of cold air hit me as I finally got out. Was it this cold earlier on? I felt thankful, however. Running is much easier when it's cold, anyway. Not that I was overly worried about this task: because I had chosen the ninja course, running fast had to be one of my best skills. I was glad that running was the first task, because it was a fast way to get rid of most of my competition – this way there would be thirty competitors rather than a few hundred.

The man by the side raised his air pistol in the air. I realised that the race would be starting in a few seconds and I into a ready position. "Ready…set…GO!" He shot the air pistol at the same time as he said _GO_ and everyone started running. I quickly broke free of the crowd, running ahead. After one lap, I realised that I was probably the first so I slowed down, to not raise too much attention to myself. I let thirteen people run past me by the end of the second lap but then sped up, passing probably about six before I passed the man with the air pistol for the third time. I grinned in triumph and another guy, wearing the guard uniform, gave me a quick form to fill out, and a ballpoint pen. I filled it out with my mostly real details and stood in a line that went back to servants' entrance and checked my form again.

 _CONGRATULATIONS FOR PASSING THE FIRST ROUND_

 _Please fill out the following questions._

 _Full Name:_ _ **Misaki Ayuzawa**_

 _Age:_ _ **17**_

 _Date of Birth:_ _ **29**_ _ **th**_ _ **September**_

 _Country of Birth:_ _ **Miyabigaoka**_

 _Current occupation:_ _ **Unemployed, because I quit my job in Miyabigaoka to come to this city.**_

 _Past occupations:_ _ **Maid, cleaner, waitress, shop assistant.**_

 _Why you want this job:_ _ **To support my family.**_

* * *

"Congratulations on passing the first round! Please pass forward your forms." Everyone gave their forms to the short woman, who sat down at a table and quickly sorted the pieces of paper into two piles after giving each one a hurried look. She took up the thicker pile and stood up again.

"This was the second test: to be able to read and write, and to not miss out any information. At Raven Palace, we prefer our maids to have had some education, at least a bit. Those who missed out information, or failed to write at all or readably, will not be read out and will be asked to leave. Well done Hitomo Eroki, Noriko Ochi…" Satsuki read out all the names, thankfully saying my name around the middle of the list. A bit over twenty people passed the second test. With a lot of grumbling and cursing, some people left. I sighed with relief and turned back to the housekeeper.

"The next test will be to get into maid outfits successfully, as modelled by the tailor's young apprentice."

She pointed at a sweet looking young girl with long curly blonde hair who strutted to the front of the room to stand next to Satsuki. She wore a cute poofy black dress with airy sleeves that covered three quarters of her thighs, beneath a white, frilled apron and a corset with black lace around the edges. Black knee-high boots were worn over black thigh-highs socks. On her head was a frilled white headband and pink ribbon bows tied onto her long bangs and there was a long pink ribbon tied in a huge bow around her neck. Most people in the room was staring in awe at the pretty girl as she twirled around a few times, showing off, before she pranced out of the room.

"As you can see from that, the parlour maid outfit is different than the standard maid clothes you might usually see. This is because there are pink ribbons on this one to differentiate the difference types of maids. Anyway, this test will start in a minute, after the outfits are brought to you. You will be given three minutes to get them on, and you will all change here. Pass them around," she ordered four women in a maid outfits, who nodded and gave each person a sack. The sack felt heavy but the contents seemed to be soft and bouncy.

"Good luck." The housekeeper smiled at us. "Start!"

I ripped the sack open without a second thought. The contents spilled out onto my lap: the black dress, the fluffy white apron, the pink ribbons, boots, and socks. I quickly decided that the dress goes on first. I slipped that on with some considerable talent in hiding my knife pocket. Then I put the apron on and tied it in a huge bow at the back, with some difficulty. The corset went over the apron and then I put the thigh-highs on and then the boots. Next was the headband and I tied the ribbons on my bangs and triumphantly added the final touch: a bow with the longest ribbon, around my neck. A few seconds later, the housekeeper's voice called out, "Stop!"

I heard some girls complaining loudly and couldn't help smiling slightly evilly in victory. I had awful motives but my competitive obsession got ahead of me. "OK," the housekeeper said after counting each of us. "There are seven of you that are properly changed. You, you, you there at the back, you, you, you with the black hair, and you, come up to the front."

A burst of happiness passed me as I stood up and walked to the front of the room. "If you didn't pass, you have to go to that room to change back to your own clothes. Well done for getting so far." She pointed to a door and there was a lot of groaning and swearing as the rest of the competitors got up and went there. Satsuki turned back to the last seven.

"Congratulations for passing the first three tests. There will probably be only one more test, and ironically it is the only one so far which actually properly connects to the work of a parlour maid. It is to serve tea to the First Prince Gerald of Seika." Someone next to Satsuki bent down to whisper in her ear and she nodded. "Sorry about that! Prince Gerald has just been hospitalised again because of his illness and is unavailable to participate, so instead Prince Takumi will substitute him."

There were several squeals of excitement at that statement. "Oh my god, I hear that he's really hot!" a woman who looked about twenty whispered loudly to the person next to her, who nodded in agreement.

Satsuki smiled in amusement and carried on. "I will lead each of you separately to one of the sitting rooms on the second floor, where the prince, the butler, and I will be sitting. It will be about five minutes each. There will be a table on the side with plenty of food and tea pots. He will order you around and you have to answer to those orders. You will be judged on things like bringing the right things, pouring tea nicely, grace and posture, how fast you are, how neat you are, and how nicely you lay out the table – you have to decorate the table before he sits down by it. The first person will be…" she explained, and shuffled the forms quickly, "Ise Nikihara."

A tall, long black haired beauty stood up and followed Satsuki out the door. The rest of us were left with two maids who stood at the front quietly observing everyone. Was this my chance to explore the palace, in case I didn't get the job? This was the only test that properly required creativity, which I had never needed as an assassin, before. I asked one of the maids if I could go to the toilet, who nodded and I said I could go if I went within three minutes, but disappointingly escorted me there and there was no way that I could sneak around.

And then I was forced to wait about half an hour, while the other six went, since I was last. Did I mention that I hate waiting? There was nothing to do except watch the other competitors coming in and seeing their reactions. The worst one was a short, brown haired girl who came in wailing that she had accidentally spilt hot tea on the prince, and he yelled at her and kicked her out the room. What a bratty prince. Eventually, it was my turn.

"Misaki Ayuzawa," Satsuki announced. I stood up, nervously biting my lip, and followed her out of the room. We walked in silence through the palace. We went down two staircases and then through a shiny door. The palace was beautiful, I had to say. It was unlike anything I had ever seen; paintings in gold frames and huge satin rugs were everywhere, screaming wealth. We passed several doors before reaching a glossy wooden door decorated with gold, where she stopped walking and smiled at me reassuringly. "You'll do fine. Good luck!"

She opened the door to let me through first, then entered after me and sat down next to a smartly dressed man in a black tailcoat and black waistcoat. That was probably the butler. There was another guy sitting in his black suit looking extremely bored. He had spiky honey-blonde hair but he was looking away so I didn't see his face. I bowed my head towards to him with respect, because I guessed that he was probably the prince.

There was a small, round, wooden table in the centre of the room. It was bare but well made. I quickly walked to the long table on the side and grabbed a white, lace tablecloth on the edge. It didn't seem as though it had been used yet by the other competitors. I lay it out neatly on the round table and went back to the larger one, taking a pretty vase, and picked out some yellow and green flowers, the national colours.

"Afternoon tea is served, Your Highness," I said making a curtsy, hoping it looked cute. He looked uninterested but got up and sat down on the satin chair by the table I had laid out.

He opened his mouth to make an order and we made eye contact. He was looking at me with confusion, probably because I was gaping at him with my mouth wide open, and I was looking at him with shock.

Because…why was I staring into the eyes of that annoying weirdo on the streets, Takumi Usui?

* * *

 **Thanks for reading this chapter! And sorry, I know this chapter was kinda boring xD Don't worry, the next chapter will be more interesting, probably!**


	3. Awkward Auditions

**DISCLAIMER: No, I don't own Maid-sama. I'm not that epic.**

 **Thanks to all the awesome reviewers for last chapter – shannon0502, IamGIO,** **nikunjonafiun, Anime-freak-otaku01, Mysa, MystearicaBlaze,** **Bailey Webster, Guest and WhiteAngel83 – and to the people who followed and favorited this story!**

* * *

Takumi smirked at me, to the surprise of Satsuki and the butler. "Oh. You're that girl," he said in his flat, monotone voice, as he crossed his legs over, looking very amused.

"You!" I shrieked pointing my finger in his direction, my eyes bulging out of my face in shock. I had that stupid disagreement with one of the three people I was supposed be killing? They were the same person, Takumi Walker and Takumi Usui? They had to be, if the prince was acting like this towards me. Yet their personalities seemed rather different.

"You."

"YOU!"

"You."

"YOOUU!"

Satsuki and the butler's eyes darted between us in utter confusion. "Er…Ayuzawa-san, Your Highness, do you know each other?" the woman asked, looking bewildered.

I looked away, crossing my arms in irritation. "I don't know that idiot!" I said sharply before I thought about it. When I realised my stupidity, I almost whacked myself, but I bowed my head in apology. How was I supposed to clear this mission if I failed this test? "My apologies, Your Majesty. I don't know what came over me."

The butler looked like he would burst with anger. He had grey hair, a red face and the longest sideburns that I had seen, that may have made me laugh if it was in any other situation. "How dare you call the prince an _idiot_? If I reported to the king what you just said, you could get yourself hanged!" I gulped. I could probably fight my way out of execution, but now there was no chance that I would get the job now.

"No, that won't happen," Takumi interrupted, holding up his hand. I widened my eyes. Why would he do that for me? "We do know each other, actually. We had a small disagreement in the market earlier today about some fruit."

He shot me a glare but turned back to Sideburns, who gave a little huff of displeasure. "Why were you in the market, master Takumi? You aren't allowed outside the palace without permission."

Takumi shrugged at the butler lazily and looked back at me. "Could you get me coffee? Milk and seven sugars."

I nodded obediently, but inside I felt so irritated that I wanted to blow up. There was nothing about him that didn't annoy me. His not-bothered attitude, his drop-dead good looks, but mostly how everyone else in the kingdom, who had never even met him, thought he was perfect. Someone as weird and annoying as him should not be a prince, much less not the next king of a huge country with millions of citizens, I thought angrily as I turned back to the preparation table.

Luckily, I knew how to make coffee. It was never in the ninja assassin training, but I taught myself how to make it after I started killing, since it was much more difficult to sleep with all the nightmares. I boiled the water with a kettle, added crushed coffee beans, strained the beans out, and added milk and – I winced – seven sugar cubes. I had a burning urge to poison the coffee but dismissed that, because I didn't have any poison. I put the coffee cup on a large saucer and added a small spoon.

I took it to Takumi, who inspected it before taking a long sip. I crossed my fingers, and waited for a reaction. He sat there, thinking for a few seconds.

"This tastes like sugary plastic. Remake it." I scowled, my face was burning with anger and I clenched my fists.

"Okay, I think we've prolonged the trial long enough," Satsuki said quickly.

Sideburns agreed. "Yes, the other girls will be worried," he said, although he looked as if he only wanted the trial to end because of the awkward atmosphere.

Satsuki gently led me out of the room, while the butler opened the door for the prince to go through. The four of us walked in utter silence through the palace to another large room on the third floor. Some maids had apparently moved the other competitors to another room, so that the prince didn't need to go to the servants' quarters.

"Alright, so each of us will read out our notes about each of you now!" Satsuki said, pulling out a notebook. So did the butler.

"Firstly, Ise Nikihara. A very beautiful and graceful girl. You poured the tea well and picked out a very good choice of cake," Satsuki read out.

Sideburns nodded in agreement. "A great girl with good posture and style."

Takumi stepped forward and said in a monotone voice, "She was not good enough to be memorable." The other girls sniggered at that while the black-haired girl snivelled in disappointment. The butler tut-tutted at the prince while Satsuki shook her head in disapproval.

"Next, Hitomo Eroki. You had good posture but picked out a bad tablecloth; cotton isn't a very good material," Satsuki said. The butler agreed with that.

"Not good enough," Takumi said in a bored voice. Sideburns shot a glare at him. The woman sniffled at that and a friend patted her back, comfortingly.

"Third was Kasuga Hiyama. You were fine but made the mistake of picking English Breakfast Tea over an afternoon tea." The butler agreed to that and a red haired woman cursed at herself.

"Boring," Takumi said, picking one of his nails.

"Then there was Teruyo Kurkawa. You were okay but picked bad biscuits to go with Earl Grey tea." The butler said something similar to what Satsuki said and Takumi, again, said something that made the girl upset.

"Fifth was Rie Yoshimatsu. You were fine until you slipped and spilt the tray on the prince." The girl put her face in her hands in shame, at that moment.

"Yes, that was a critical mistake," sighed the butler.

"It is a horrible experience, having tea poured on you. Don't be surprised if you don't get the job," the prince said harshly. Couldn't he say it in a less harsh way?

"Fumi Hira. You didn't do anything particularly wrong," Satsuki said.

"You have an expression that looks like you have a sock stuffed up your nose," Takumi said, deadpan. The woman whimpered.

"Last: Misaki Ayuzawa," Satsuki read out. I groaned at myself. "Sorry for saying this, but a few of things went critically wrong in your trial. Your attitude seemed kind of angry and you called the prince an 'idiot, you made coffee with a bad coffee cup and saucer. Then apparently the coffee tasted bad."

"Yes, you had the nerve to call His Highness an idiot! We have no place for an imbecile like you, here at Raven Palace," Sideburns said harshly. I put my face in my hands in shame.

"That coffee tasted like cardboard," Takumi said shortly and simply. I glared daggers at him while the other girls sniggered.

"So my final decision will be Ise Nikihara, the first one," Satsuki said.

"My final decision is also Ise Nikihara," Sideburns said, as he shot me a dirty look.

Takumi stepped forward and declared, "My decision is Misaki Ayuzawa."

* * *

Wait.

What?

WHAT?

 _WHAT THE - ?_

I stared at him in shock. The other six girls stared at him in shock. Satsuki and the butler stared at him in shock. I stared at him some more, in shock.

What was this idiot? I evidently did the worst audition of all of us. Was something mentally wrong with him?

"Erm…Your Highness…" Satsuki managed to say.

"Master!" Sideburns scolded, in a harsh voice. "She is not acceptable!"

"I agree," Takumi said, still sounding very bored. "But I think that having her here will be…amusing." At that moment, he smirked at me.

That confirmed it. Something actually had to be wrong in this guy's head. This idiot was some kind of outer-space alien weirdo. I looked around the room, desperately looking for somebody to say something to end the awkwardness, but everyone had strange expressions on their faces like they were thinking of something very perverted. Well, they probably were, the way Takumi had phrased that sentence. Goddammit, I was starting to thing perverted thoughts. I groaned in humiliation. Ugh, I hated him.

"Uhhmm," Satsuki mumbled kind of breaking the awkward silence. "Umm…well it's still two against one!" she said uncomfortably.

"I'm the prince, so _my_ vote counts for more." He irritated more than ever, after saying that comment. That was about the most arrogant thing that anyone could say. Satsuki looked even more uncomfortable.

Sideburns looked away from Takumi and muttered, "Brat." At first, I was annoyed at Sideburns for getting mad at _me_ for calling Takumi an idiot, but then there was a moment when I couldn't agree more with that butler. That was the only word that could truly express Takumi right now. Takumi looked highly amused.

"Then I suppose Misaki Ayuzawa is our new maid," the butler announced dully, giving me a quick glare.

Satsuki smiled at me. The other girls glared at me and rolled their eyes. "Congratulations to Ayuzawa-san!"

* * *

Satsuki and I made our way back to the servants' hall. The hall was now busy with maybe about fifty servants. The women all wore maid outfits similar to mine, although some had ribbons of different colours. Some of the men wore smart black tailcoats and waistcoats – footmen, probably – and others wore yellow and green guard outfits, with their belts holding bayonets and shotguns. It was strange seeing such a bizarre community of people. It was so noisy that I had an urge to hold my ears. Some people were eating their late lunch of disgusting-looking vegetables ravenously, others lounging on the armchairs on the sides. Others were lighting cigarettes with the fireplace or dancing to the music being played by a gruff looking guy with a tiny harmonica.

It quietened down marginally in respect for Satsuki, when we entered the room, since she was the most important woman in the whole room, who muttered to me, "This place seems noisy now, but when it is dinner time and all one hundred servants are in here, plus some guards on break, it is a complete pigsty."

She led me through to another room, which was much smaller and cosier. The door had a wonky sign that said _Parlour Maid Residence_. The walls were decorated with photos of smiling families. There were four bunk beds – that meant an eight person room. Seven of the beds had things like pyjamas and messy piles of clothes spilling everywhere. One bed was bare; that one was probably mine. This room would be my temporary home, but it felt more like a home than that mission base ever did.

Satsuki thought for a second. "The showers and baths are in the room next to this room. And this outfit is a bit small on you…I'll have a new one custom made for you. You see, my nephew is the tailor's apprentice, so I can get it custom made if I ask nicely…ah, that's the 'girl' you saw modelling earlier." That cute girl? Nephew? The housekeeper looked mildly like she was having fun seeing my surprised expression.

"Also, sorry about the prince. Don't tell anyone I said this, but he can be a complete spoiled brat sometimes but I think he's a good kid. Anyway, you can do what you like for the rest of today. Dinner is any time from five to eight. Oh yes, and I'll have your Palace ID made so that you can enter and exit the palace more easily. Bye." She made a cute wave and left the room.

* * *

After showering, getting my bag from downstairs, and changing into a white blouse and knee high black skirt, my next stop was to the guard who had my precious knife, Naoya something,. I didn't recognise him anywhere in the hall, so I made my way downstairs. I found a guard with sleek black hair, next to the servants' entrance.

"Um, hi? Do you know a Shiro something?" I asked the guard awkwardly.

"Hmmm, I don't think so. Actually…is it Shiroyan?" I nodded and he laughed. "He's the leader of the moron trio. Don't get too close for him or the other moron trio boys; they all have this thing for cute maids like yourself. They're all somewhere guarding the main gate, by the way." I smiled, thanked him and walked around the palace to the front gate. Sure enough, the blonde guard was there.

"Hi!" he said excitedly and looked around at the two boys next to him. "This is the pretty young lady I was talking about!"

"Ohhh, you're right, Shirogan! She's so cute!" exclaimed another guard with dark blue hair tied in a short ponytail. "What's your name?"

"Misaki Ayuzawa."

Another guard with short blue hair gave me a dopey smile. "Can I call you Misa-chan?"

I almost facepalmed. He was trying to call an assassin Misa-chan? "No. Where's my knife?" I demanded.

"Oh, here," the blonde said, pulling a well concealed knife out of his guard jacket. "You did get the maid job, right? It's a very, very, very, very nice knife by the way. Really sharp. I cut my finger on it, see?" He was such an idiot that he got on my nerves. He probably held out his finger but after I got my knife back, I turned and started walking away. I pulled up my skirt and put the knife in its rightful place in my thigh knife holster.

"Bye!" one of them called from behind me. I turned and made a possibly cute wave, which made them all squeal loudly. What idiots.

The next stop was to the fruit stand to thank that girl, Sakura, for telling me about this job. I partly owed it to her that I got it, anyway.

* * *

"You got the job?" the pink haired girl said in surprise.

"You got the job?" the dark haired girl with glasses said incredulously.

I nodded. "Thanks for telling me about it, Sakura! I owe you one."

"No, it's okay!" Sakura said cheerfully. "This is the first time I've properly talked to anyone who's living in the palace. You're so cool, Misaki-san! Did you see Usui there?"

I rolled my eyes, reliving that awful trial. "Yeah, I saw him."

"Wow, so he actually is a footman! That's so cool! Did you see any of the princes?" Sakura squealed.

I almost snorted at that. She had basically asked the same question twice. "I saw Prince Takumi."

"Oh my god, Misaki-san, you're so lucky!" Sakura shrieked, reaching over and shaking me by my shoulders, back and forth.

"That prince is overrated," Shizuko said, sounding irritated by Sakura.

"I agree," I said.

Sakura pouted at me. "I've never seen him, but he is handsome, right?"

"Very." Although he had a bizarre personality, I had to admit that he had been blessed with very good looks.

"That's nice to know," a voice from behind me said. Oh no. I closed my eyes shut and prayed that it wasn't the person I thought that was.

"Ooh! Is Usui-kun talking to us?" Sakura's voice called, sounding excited.

I groaned and spun around to look at him. He was dressed in earth tone peasants' clothing again which very amusing to me, but I kept my steady glare. "Ugh. What are you doing here?!"

He smirked. "So, you won't thank your saviour – ACK!" I interrupted him by dragging him off by his collar. Takumi immediately shut up and followed me silently. Maybe he was gagging or something. Well, I wouldn't know because I didn't turn around to look at him the whole journey to find an empty alleyway. People in the market sometimes turned and stared at me, the angry brunette, dragging a hot blonde haired boy by the collar of his shirt, but I stomped through the crowds without shame.

I shoved him into the first dark empty alleyway I found and suddenly realised that this would be the best chance I got to kill him. I looked around. There was no one walking past the alleyway and there were even huge bins to chuck him into. I had my knife and everything. If something went wrong, I still had the pocket knife shoved down my bra.

"Uhh…" he said in a flat voice, pointing straight at my legs. I realised that I was holding my skirt up a bit, because I was thinking about my knife and how I should kill him. I verified quickly that I was not revealing my knife, and I hadn't, luckily, but I had still raised my skirt higher than what would be thought of as 'modest'.

I felt my face burning up and I looked daggers at him. "You…ugh!" I whacked him on the shoulder in irritation as I decided not to kill him yet. I would feel far too guilty, killing someone as mentally retarded as him.

"What did you want to say to me?" Takumi said.

"Uhh…" I felt my face flushing up even more. "I'm only going to say it once, okay? Uhmm…thank you for getting me the job. I know that you had to act even more like a brat than you are usually like, so…umm…thanks."

He smirked. "What did you say? Say that louder, I couldn't hear you at all." He cupped his ear and leaned closer to me.

I glared at him even more. He was just teasing me, I thought in utter irritation. "Idiot! You make me so mad! I said I wasn't saying it again! Idiot!" I smacked him again on the shoulder.

Takumi sniggered at me. "I was right. You are _very_ interesting."

I was thrust into the world of confusion, once again. "So what, I picked a dumb fight with you because I was craving apples, I had enough guts to call the 'prince' an idiot, then I called you an idiot several times after that. And now, I'm a maid in the palace because of your weird interference. What about that makes me so interesting?"

He shrugged. "All of those things make you a bit interesting, I suppose. But what makes you _really_ interesting is the knife you're holding there on your leg."

* * *

Huh.

 _WHAT DID HE JUST SAY?!_

* * *

 **Thanks for reading this chapter, I hope you liked it! Especially that last bit there ;)**


	4. Failed Attempt 1

**DISLAIMER: I don't own Kaichou wa Maid-sama. Do I really have to say this every chapter?**

 **Thanks for all the absolutely AMAZING reviews :D I never thought I would get so many reviews – it's never really happened before to me. Literally, 34 reviews for 3 chapters is a ridiculously awesome amount and it makes me so happy! Yayy!**

 **Anyway, on with the story…  
**

* * *

 _"So what, I picked a dumb fight with you because I was craving apples, I had enough guts to call the 'prince' an idiot, then I called you an idiot several times after that. And now, I'm a maid in the palace because of your weird interference. What about that makes me so interesting?"_

 _He shrugged. "All of those things make you a bit interesting, I suppose. But what makes you really interesting is the knife you're holding there on your leg."_

* * *

Huh.

WHAT DID HE JUST SAY?!

DID HE JUST SAY WHAT I THOUGHT HE DID?!

"WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY?!" I screamed, pointing at him with my finger accusingly. "REPEAT THAT. NOW. SLOWLY."

He smiled slowly. "Oh, so I _am_ right."

I groaned at myself. Why couldn't I just pretend I didn't know what he was talking about? I might have been able to fool him, if I had. I scowled at him. "How on earth did you know about it?"

He looked at me, looking very amused. "I'm not dumb like you think I am, you know."

Huh. I had never considered that. I knew he was the weirdest and most annoying person I knew, and by far not your usual prince, but I had kind of assumed that he was dumb, at least with common sense.

Takumi chuckled at my reaction. "It wasn't difficult to realise it. That skirt you were wearing this morning was really flowy and light, correct? I notice details that others don't see. When you lean on your left, you can see weird bumps on your right side, which are your straps, right. I saw a bit of that then you were jumping around angrily in the market. Also I noticed that you were leaning a tiny bit on your right with the bit of extra weight. Then in the maid audition, you leaned down to make coffee at some point, and you could see a black thing poking out behind your skirt, because your skirt poofed up. That was the knife pocket, right?" He gave me a crooked smile. "And as the last experiment…" He reached towards me and pulled my skirt up.

RIGHT UP.

I screamed loudly and pulled my skirt back down firmly. "You – pervert – never – EVER – do – that – again!" I slapped him hard on the cheek in between words, and sank to the ground in utter humiliation.

"Nice panties you've got there, but shouldn't you be worrying about other stuff right now? I have your knife you know," he said. My head shot in his direction, and sure enough, he was twirling my poor knife, around in his fingers. "Very nice knife, by the way. Very sharp, too. Ouch." He winced as he cut his pinky finger slightly. What an idiot. What idiot would play with knives like that, if they aren't a professional?

He was irritating me again. What if he took away my knife? I would never complete the mission, then. I balled my fist and aimed a punch at him. He dodged the attack and carried on playing with the knife, without a care. "Ugh! Just give the knife back!" I screeched.

"No, why should I?" he taunted. "You don't need it for anything important. Or do you?"

"It's – for – self – defence!" I snapped, almost punching him several times. Goddammit, why was he so good with a knife? I couldn't get close enough to him without getting stabbed with the knife he was now throwing in the air.

He smirked at me. "If that's true, why don't you just keep pepper spray in your bag all the time, like a normal girl?"

I did a huge leap over him to attack him from the back, but he turned far too fast. I cursed and stood up properly. "I prefer using knives."

He started to twirl the knife in the air and catch it. "Fine. Then why are you going into so much trouble hiding it? Aren't thigh knife holsters much more uncomfortable and far, far more expensive than say, keeping it in a bag wrapped in a cloth, or buying a knife holder to hang on your hips? Why do you prefer wearing unfashionable long skirts rather than normal ones or trousers, just to hide the knife?"

I winced slightly. He seemed to have figured everything out. "I like wearing long skirts, for your information!" I made a grab for the knife while it was in the air, but he caught it first. "And the thigh holster was a gift from my grandmother! So it wasn't expensive at all!"

"Ok, fine. Then why did you go into the maid audition with it? Why do you need it in a guarded palace?"

"I…I went into the maid audition with it because it's like second nature, wearing the holster!" I aimed a kick at him but he leaped back agilely.

"Why do you have this knife then? Why don't you have a normal kitchen knife? They don't sell these types of knife anywhere normal and if they do, it's not cheap. How did you, a peasant, get this knife?"

I stopped trying to punch him, to think. I had no excuse for having it. I couldn't play the 'gift' card again, because who buys a knife meant for killing, for a normal teenage girl? I couldn't say I 'found' it somewhere. Because, who would leave a really sharp expensive knife on the middle of a street or something?

He grinned at me evilly when he saw my hopeless expression. "Checkmate."

Huh? Did he…was he…? I gasped. He wasn't dumb at all, actually. He had suspected that I was some kind of assassin or killer, and tried to get it out of me by asking questions that require me to lie and try and fool him. But the thing was, I wouldn't be putting all my energy in it, because he stole my knife and I was focusing on getting it back rather than answering his dumb questions. I hit my own head in anger. Why did I fall right into the trap? Why was I so idiotic? Ugh.

"So I'm right," he said with a confident smirk. "You are some kind of assassin or something, correct?"

I glared at him. "So I like to hide my nice expensive knife. That doesn't mean I'm an assassin."

"Hmm." He thought for a second. "Fine, but how are you such a good fighter, then? You probably could have got the knife back from me if you weren't spending half your concentration on the questions. I bet you learned all that fighting from some kind of assassin training."

"I took martial arts classes for a few weeks, and it turned out that I was a natural." I shrugged at him. "Stop trying to say I'm an assassin, because I'm not. It's just plain rude."

"I don't believe you. You're clearly lying."

"Am not."

"Are too."

My irritation level rose. "Goddammit! Why are you trying to figure me out? You have no business butting into my life! I don't know you, and you don't know me! So maybe I have a shady past. But that doesn't mean you have to go all detective on me for your own entertainment! Will you just shut up and leave me alone?!" I snatched my poor knife back from Takumi, who was looking rather taken aback by my outburst, and had stopped playing with it. With one more glare at him, I stormed off back into the busy market where he wouldn't find and bother me, and went back to the palace with one thought on my head.

Prince Takumi _had_ to die.

* * *

I spent the rest of the day planning and planning in the servants' hall until I decided on a strategy that could hardly fail. After I figured that Takumi would be downstairs having his dinner, I sneaked into his bedroom. Actually, calling it just a room would barely be giving it justice. It was more like a tiny palace inside the real palace.

There was a sitting room with sofas and filled with loads of books and manga. After the sitting room, there was a dining room with a huge long table, and after that there was a bedroom that led to another room that was probably a bathroom. The bedroom had the hugest, comfiest-looking bed I had ever seen. And there was a huge space under the bed, I thought triumphantly. I crawled under carefully and lay down. I took out my knife from the holster, and also the pocketknife in case something went wrong.

All that was left was to wait. And wait. And wait. And also wait. And then wait. And wait more. And a bit more. And then more. And more and more and more and more and more…

It was a few hours after that when I woke up from my 'nap'. It was completely pitch black and almost silent. Almost silent, except for the sound of someone's quiet breathing. Was he asleep? I peeked out a bit to look at the massive ticking grandfather clock. It was around 12 o'clock already. I had been under the bed for five whole hours. Most people would be asleep now. Especially a prince, with all those duties he probably had to do in the morning. He would have to get up before 8, right? And he seemed to have so much energy to bother me that he probably got plenty of sleep. So he might go to sleep around 11? That meant he would surely be asleep now, I thought with a small smile.

I crept out of my hiding spot silently and stood up. I had trained my night vision well, luckily. Takumi, sure enough, was curled up on his bed. Actually, he was surprisingly cute when he was sleeping and not annoying at all. Not that it mattered anyway, since he was about to die. He wasn't going to look cute when he was all knifed and all, I thought grimly.

"I'm sorry Takumi," I whispered in a dramatic sort of way. "But I can't let you spill that I'm an assassin. Goodbye." I raised my knife directly above his head.

"Uhm…what are you doing?"

I yelped and took several steps back. "No, what are you doing? Why aren't you asleep?"

"I have insomnia," Takumi said simply. "What were you doing? Were you going to kill me while I was asleep? How cowardly. Are you worried you couldn't take me on if I was awake?"

I snorted. "Hardly. This is just the easiest and quietest way. I could take you on easily, when you're awake."

"Fine then. Bring it on."

"Yeah!" I said. Ugh. My competitive side was showing, and I said stupid things when I was in competitive mode. "It's on! Tomorrow, I'm killing you. Awake!"

"Yep. Goodnight."

"Goodnight!" I said cheerfully and walked away.

Wait.

What the frick had just happened?

Was that just my first assassination failure?

Ever?

* * *

I woke up the next morning gloomily in my new room to find seven faces staring right in my face.

"AAAHHH!" I screamed.

"AAAAHHHHH!" seven voices screamed back.

"AAAAAAHHHHHHH!" I screamed at them.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" they screamed back.

"Oh, she's alive," a girl with peach-coloured hair in a long bob cut, said, not sounding very happy about it. A girl with curly dark red hair and a curvy figure laughed at that. She was wearing a maid outfit, and so were the other girls.

"Don't be mean," another girl, with long mossy green hair and oval shaped glasses, scolded.

"Uhh…don't you think we should actually say hi to her?" mumbled a girl with braided auburn hair.

"Oh yeah," the green haired girl said with a little laugh. "Hello, I'm Subaru. You're Misaki, right?"

I nodded. "Yep. Nice to meet you."

The redhead smiled. "I'm Erika."

"Sayu," said a girl with very short brown hair.

"Gon," said a girl with short grey hair.

"Mochi," the auburn-haired girl in braids said.

"I'm Sen!" said a girl with short black hair cheerfully.

The peachy-haired girl gave me an annoyed look. "I'm Honoka. The girl you're sleeping under. Don't you dare rock the bed, or I will murder you." I nodded quickly. Although she probably wouldn't be able to kill me, I didn't want to make an enemy of the girls that were going to be sleeping with me for the next few days or weeks or even months.

Subaru looked awkward. "Umm. Yeah. So Satsuki-sama says that your training starts at 8 o'clock sharp in the servants' hall. Your new outfit is there," - she pointed at a chair with the maid outfit slung over it – "and, uh, 8 o'clock is in in 4 minutes."

I freaked out, like any normal person would in that situation, and pushed past the rest of them.

"Sorry," Erika squeaked.

"No, no, it's okay!" I said sweetly but inside I was furious. I quickly dressed in under three minutes and then brushed my hair and teeth and rushed out the room into the servants' hall, noticing that the rest of them had left our dormitory. The servants' hall was probably full capacity now; maybe more than two hundred people were having their breakfast and doing whatever they wanted before work started. And the noise. I hated killing, waiting, and annoying people like Takumi, but noise was high on the list of things I hate. And right now, there was a lot of it. I winced.

"Oh, hello, Ayuzawa-san!" said Satsuki's voice cheerfully from behind me.

I spun around to face her. "Hi, Satsuki-sama!" I said, smiling.

"Have you had breakfast yet?"

My stomach rumbled, and I looked apologetically at her. "Sorry, I woke up five minutes ago."

She laughed. "Nah, it's alright. You should get up earlier, though, because most of the food is gobbled up already by 8." I nodded, glancing at the tables where the servants were dispersing because the food was gone. "It's alright; today I saved you a croissant when I thought you might be late."

She handed me a croissant which I gobbled down ravenously in a few seconds. I was starving. "Thanks!" I said smiling, afterwards.

Satsuki looked happy. "Okay, now that you've eaten, your training starts now!"

* * *

"Today you will follow Honoka-san around and do what she does," Satsuki said cheerfully. "I think you've both met each other already?" We both nodded grudgingly. Ugh. I had to follow this rude mean girl around all day? "That's good, then! I bet you'll be great friends! Have fun, bye!" Honoka rolled her eyes.

We both said bye to her and Honoka started walking away from me, without warning, towards a board on the wall where hundreds of strange little bells hung, and there was a small huddle of parlour maids and footmen. Underneath each bell was a little tag which said things like _Sitting Room 2_ or _Great Hall 4_. These were probably calling bells, I guessed.

Suddenly there came the sound of tinkling. A footman called out, "Anyone to go to His Highness Prince Takumi's bedroom?"

"Me," a boyish yet girlish voice called.

"Me!" Honoka called, raising her hand.

I groaned but stopped after realising that this could be valuable assassination planning time. Honoka, a young footman with dark greenish hair and a very girly face, and I walked downstairs towards the prince's room in silence and the footman opened the door.

Takumi was lounging lazily on one of the sofas in the sitting room, slurping some canned soda loudly. He stopped when we came in and noticed me, smirking a tiny bit.

"Apologies for our tardiness, master," Honoka said sweetly, with a curtsy.

"Good morning, master," Girly Footman said with an awkward bow.

They both looked at me anxiously. I scowled. No way was I lowering my pride and calling that annoying weirdo alien my _master_.

There was silence for about ten seconds where Honoka looked at me, furiously gesturing at me towards Takumi, and Girly Footman's gaze kept darting between me and Takumi looking absolutely terrified.

I sighed. "Good morning, _master_ ," I said flatly with a considerable amount of sarcasm in my voice. I looked up at him and we made eye contact for a split second. There was some more silence before he looked away and covered his mouth with one of his hands. And then he sniggered.

He sniggered quietly until that turned into laughter. I felt my face flushing up with embarrassment. He was probably laughing at me and last night's failed attempt at his murder. Honoka and Girly Footman looked between me and Takumi in utter bewilderment, and I felt very bad for them. This probably looked extremely weird from an outsider's point of view.

After about a minute, Honoka probably decided that Takumi would not be ordering anything any time soon. "Excuse us, master," she said doing a little bobbing curtsy. Girly Footman bowed and I curtsied at the prince reluctantly. After that, we left the room, closing the door firmly.

"Uhh…what was that all about?" Honoka asked in amazement. "I've never seen him laugh so much before, and I've been working here for two years! And nothing really happened that was funny…"

I looked at her scrunching my nose up. "I really have no clue about what happened just now," I said hopelessly. What the hell was going on in that guy's strange mind?

* * *

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	5. A Load of Other Failed Attempts

**DISCLAIMER: Yeah. I don't own Kaichou wa Maid-sama.**

 **I hit the 50** **th** **review! Yay! I've never got there before, so that goes to The Shadow Gryphon. *claps***

 **Hope you enjoy the next chapter! Just a warning – there will be quite a bit of attempted murders coming, and it will probably be slightly repetitive, but bear with it; it will go somewhere by the end of this chapter! The rest of the fic won't just be Misaki attempting to murder Usui again and again and again…**

* * *

After that _horrible_ day of training where I had to follow that _horrible_ girl around, I finally earned my rest. Which was taken up by my assassination plans, I thought with a sigh. But this plan was absolutely foolproof and could not go wrong, so it would happen quickly and then I could go and relax happily without having to worry about the prince spilling my secret.

I snuck into his bedroom or, well, set of rooms, again. It was one of the only places where it was free of people looking. This time, though, it wouldn't be the bedroom where I was hiding. It was the bathroom.

It had to be the bathroom. Because he won't be expecting me to be there, I thought smirking.

The bathroom alone was probably bigger than the servants' hall where hundreds of people were. It had a shiny gold bath that could have easily been a swimming pool, two large showers, a toilet and a massive sink. The rest of the room was pretty empty. So where do I hide?

My eyes immediately went to the bath. It was pretty deep so I didn't even need to lie flat on the bottom of the bath. I pulled out the big knife and the pocket knife. I sat there for a bit, impatiently. Why wasn't he coming? He would come to the bathroom to brush his teeth, but before that, he would come to have a bath…

The door clicked open and I made the tiniest peek to check that it was him. I saw the top of his spiky honey blonde hair, and made a silent sigh of relief. It was definitely him. No one on the earth had the same spikiness in hair as him.

I leapt out of the bathtub with a huge jump and pulled back my knife to strike through his torso with maximum strength.

Then I looked.

I felt my eyes widening and my face burning up in embarrassment, and suddenly I couldn't move my arms or legs at all anymore. He was naked, other than a small towel around his, uh, area. I felt like such a pathetic idiot, not to mention a massive pervert. He had a gorgeously smexy chest, which I refused to look at after thinking disgustingly perverted thoughts. _Eww…Takumi, what have you turned me into? I – am – not – allowed – to – look – at – targets – like – this!_ I thought furiously.

"W-wh-what a-are you d-doing?" I managed to get out. I literally wanted to murder myself. He smirked. I took a deep breath. "WHAT THE FREAKING HELL ARE YOU DOING?!"

"I was just going for a bath," he said flatly, pointing at the bathtub simply.

"WHO THE HECK DOESN'T UNDRESS IN THE _BATHROOM_ WHEN THEY ARE ABOUT TO HAVE A _BATH_?!" I snapped. "WHY WOULD YOU UNDRESS IN THE BEDROOM AND THEN GO TO THE BATHROOM? WHO DOES THAT?"

"You wanted to watch me undress?" he said with an amused smile. "I'm already pretty much naked, sorry."

"N-no!" I said with a blush. Why the hell was I blushing? Sometimes my body was a complete idiot. I'm not a twelve year old; I'm seventeen, and a fricking assassin! Why was I blushing at that? "Uh, no. That's disgusting. Eww. Why would I want to see you do that? You're a pervert."

He smirked. " _I'm_ a pervert? You're the one who had a massive rant about wanting to see me undress."

I cringed at myself. "It was not about wanting to see you undress! It was about how, when you go into the bathroom, you are supposed to be fully dressed!"

"Why did it sound like you were disappointed, then?"

"BECAUSE NOW I CAN'T KILL YOU!" I wailed.

Takumi smiled, looking very entertained. "Because you're thinking perverted thoughts?"

"So what if I am?" I huffed angrily. I would never tell him what exactly, but it went something like, if I started punching and kicking and knifing him, his towel would slip off and I would see his stuff. He laughed at me as I stormed out of the room in a fury. It was too late to try another time because by the time he got out of the shower, it would be late and the other girls would suspect something.

Tomorrow, I would try out my next plan. And this time it _had_ to work.

* * *

The next day, the training fortunately ended earlier than expected at 4 in the afternoon. More time to carry out my plans, I thought with a mischievous smile. I had never, in my life, wanted to kill someone as much as I wanted to kill Usui. Because, in my profession, killing someone is winning, and not doing so, is losing. I had always won in the past and had never lost. And that's why I wanted to win so much.

I had to win.

I sneaked into his bedroom undetected, again, and took a silk pillow from his bed. It was so soft that I wanted to snuggle it to death, but I had no time to. I pulled the pillow out of the pillowcase, violently throwing it on the bed, but I kept the pillowcase.

I had never had to resort to suffocation before. All the other murders were knife or rifle attacks. I had about one day of training on it, which I had basically forgotten, but he was already cautious of my knife attacks enough that I decided I should try different ways.

When I was bored between missions and there wasn't much to do except train more, they sometimes gave me books to read. Never romances, by the way – they didn't want to give me any hope for my rather dreary looking future – but rather it was always action, horror, or thriller books. And there were a lot of suffocations with pillow cases, and I had always wanted to try it out. They seemed a lot easier than knife attacks – there was no blood whatsoever.

I crept quietly behind the living room door and waited for him to come in, for a couple of minutes. The front door slammed open in a way that seemed like a prince rather than a servant. The footsteps were loud and slow, getting closer and closer to the living room. The door I was hiding behind finally opened, and I sprang into action.

The pillowcase was over his head before he even saw me there. I shoved him against the closed door with one hand over his neck, strangling him and enclosing the pillowcase.

"Aha," I said with a small smirk. "This time you'll be dead, before you can make another one of your snide remarks. Sorry and goodbye," I said with a dramatic flourish of my free hand.

His neck shifted underneath my hand. "Then, too bad for you."

I banged my head on the wall in annoyance. "Aren't you supposed to be, uh, gagging to death, or something, right now?"

He shrugged. "I moved my position to make myself more comfortable here. So no."

I shifted my hand gently and pushed harder onto his neck. "Is this better?"

"Hmm. Yes, I think that's an improvement. If you actually tried to kill me, it might work."

"Hey! I actually do want to kill you!" I scowled.

He scoffed at me. "Uh, then why are you suffocating me with a pillowcase? I thought it was a joke. You know that it doesn't actually work in real life? These pillowcases have holes in them to breathe in. And even if you covered my mouth, it would take, like, ten minutes for me to stop breathing."

Yeah, why didn't I realise that? I thought I was supposed to be smart. This guy was somehow messing up all my thoughts. I glowered at the boy with a pillow case on his head. "Who cares? I still have my knife." I released my firm grip on his neck and he pulled the pillow case off his head. His hair was all messed up now and his shirt was crumpled. I forced my gaze away before I could think that he was looking even more gorgeous than usual, and pulled out my knife with a fancy flourish.

He shrugged lazily at me. "Alright, then. You can stab me, if you like."

"Why are you treating this like a joke? Stop it! I have a proper knife in my hand. You could be lying on the floor, dead, in the next minute!" I snapped, boiling with rage. "I'm not killing you until you take me seriously!"

I stomped past him and flung the door open without another look at him. His voice called, from behind me, "You're putting it off!"

I couldn't agree with him more. What was wrong with me?

* * *

"One maid to take the dinner to Prince Takumi's dining room!" a footman called out in the servants' hall after hearing the tinkling of the tiny bell.

I bounced off my sofa by the fireplace. "Me!" I called out at the same time as a few other maids. I crossed my fingers tightly. I had been hoping to be picked to go to his room to deliver _food_ for three days now.

"Hmm. You at the back there?" he asked pointing at me. "Yeah. You. Collect the dinner from the kitchens on the ground floor and bring it to Takumi's room."

I nodded my head quickly and darted off towards the kitchen. I had never actually been to the kitchen, but had heard from other servants that it smelt so nice there, that some people liked to sit there in their breaks, instead of the servants' hall. I had laughed at that before, but honestly, I could see where they were coming from. As soon as I pushed the door open, it hit me. I could smell chicken soup, and bacon cooking, and garlic bread, and onions being fried, and chocolate being melted, so much more. It wouldn't be a lie to say that I almost drooled at the smell alone.

I hadn't been in a proper kitchen for six years, actually, I thought in amazement. Not since I was ten, before we were evicted out of our family house in Miyabigaoka. My parents were both great cooks, and even my little eight year old (at the time) sister showed potential. Somehow, I hadn't inherited their cooking power. I wasn't even able to cut apples nicely, I thought with a smile.

I didn't really know what to do, so I strode to the middle of the giant kitchen and called out in a loud voice, "Does anyone have the dinner for Prince Takumi?"

"I do!" a friendly looking boy with brown hair and cute, brown eyes said with a huge smile. He was wearing the standard white chef's hat and apron, which was a tad big on him, and he had a long scar on one of his cheeks. "I'm quite new here and I don't really know if it's good enough for the prince. That's salad and there's chicken soup underneath the lid. The desert is black forest cake. There's a banana on the side because I hear that he likes bananas. Thanks!" He waved bye and left me with a tray of nice-smelling food.

I took it out of the kitchen and found an empty storeroom on the second floor, and put the tray on one of the lower shelves.

Honestly, it wasn't nice of me to use some poor boy's efforts to kill the prince, but it had to be done. I took a vial out of my pocket and uncapped it. It was toxic, poisonous powder and smelt disgusting. I sprinkled the powder over the soup and the cake and salad. I paused when I saw the banana and had a glorious idea.

After a few minutes, I was back in front of Takumi's door. "Room service!" I called, knocking the door politely, because I didn't really know what I was supposed to say. The door swung open and he gave me a wry smile, leaning on the door.

"Aha. I knew it was you. Goddamn unexperienced maids. _Room service!_ " he mimicked, grinning.

I gave him an amused smile back. "What was I supposed to say? Anyway, there's your dinner."

"Ehem. I'm supposed to eat this?" He pulled open the soup lid and inspected the food. "You know I don't really trust anything that you give me?"

I shrugged. "I'm out of ideas for now, so I started working hard in my training," I lied. Actually I had started working hard so that I could carry out this idea. "They let me start serving people now."

"Oh," he said, flatly. He didn't really sound like he believed me. "That's nice for you."

"Yeah, it is," I said awkwardly.

"OK, then," Takumi said. "If you aren't trying to kill me, what are you doing here? Shoo."

I nodded politely. It was annoying that I couldn't check that he was dead, but I supposed that for him to start eating, he wanted me gone. I had walked a few steps away when he called out loudly.

"EW! What's this gross white stuff doing in my soup?" he yelled. I groaned. Seriously, I should have stirred it with something. "It's poison, isn't it?" Another groan from me.

"Fine, fine! I ran out of ways to knife you!" I huffed as I walked back to the dining room.

He smirked at me. "Aha. I'll just have the cake and the banana, then. I don't like salad without something to eat it with." He inspected the cake and found more white stuff and groaned at me while I sulked at another failed plan.

"Fine then. Did you poison the banana?" he asked, looking mildly annoyed.

"Nah," I said. "How would I poison a banana?"

"Alright. I'll choose to trust you, because I'm hungry." He bit into the banana and smiled happily. He took another bite and my heart started to beat faster in anticipation. Come on, don't notice it, carry on...

He stopped biting. "Err…what's this metal doing in my banana?"

Crap. He noticed. I had stuck a needle into the banana, hoping to choke him to death if he found the powder.

"Goddammit! Why are you so good at this? I tried so hard this time!" I yelled. "Tomorrow, I'll kill you properly."

He looked amused. "I bet you won't be able to do it."

I glared fiercely at him. "I bet I will! If I win, er, you'll be dead."

"And if I win, you won't try and kill me again. Although it has been very entertaining, I don't want to have to miss meals like this again."

I raised my eyebrows. "I can't bet that."

"If you're so certain that you can kill me, you'll bet me," he said smirking.

"Fine! Fine, then!" I shouted angrily. I would probably regret this later. "It's on tomorrow. The final attempt!"

He leaned back on his chair, smiling lazily. "Sure thing."

* * *

That night, I waited until the church bells from town chimed midnight. Well, technically this was 'tomorrow'. I crept up and stuck the note I had written previously, onto my bedpost, in case any of the others found my bed empty. It was seriously cringeworthy and very unlike me.

 _Hey guys!_

 _Don't worry about me being gone. I'm going on my secret midnight date in town 3 Sorry I didn't tell any of ya!_

 _Misaki :)_

I wrapped the ropes around my waist, underneath my baggy nighty, and sneaked out of the bedroom and then out of the strangely empty servants' hall. I went all the way to Takumi's room, which was luckily unguarded like the King's was. I picked the lock easily and crept in. He seemed asleep, but after seeing the first attempt, he probably wasn't.

Firstly, I covered his mouth firmly. His eyes popped open in shock. I dragged him out of the bed and dumped him onto a chair a few metres away. I let go of his mouth, pulled up my nighty and unravelled the ropes.

His eyes widened in surprise and he chuckled awkwardly. "Uhh…well, I've never done this kind of kinky stuff before. Not my kind of thing, to be honest. Especially this way round –"

He got cut off when I smacked him on the shoulder with a murderous glare. "Shut up and don't mention that again, or I'll feel awkward doing this."

He laughed. "Aha. Okay then. You can go on and have your fun." He put his arms down and sat still for me to wrap the ropes around him.

I huffed in annoyance. "Stop treating this like a joke! I said that I would kill you, so I'm going to kill you."

He nodded slowly. "Okay. Sure. Kill me, then."

"I'm serious!"

Takumi leaned towards me in his seat. "Then why don't I believe you?"

"I don't know why you don't believe me!" I snapped furiously. I chucked away the ropes in my hand and took out my knife. "In fact, I don't need all that crappy tying up stuff. I'll just straight up kill you with my knife."

I kicked his chair over and he fell onto the floor immediately. I crept over him and pinned him to the floor. He didn't try to get up. Why didn't his eyes look scared? Why wasn't his body shaking like all my other victims? Why wasn't he trying to resist? Well, it didn't matter. He would be scared enough when he was actually dying and bleeding to death. I raised my knife over his torso and brought it down…

And then my knife stopped moving a fraction of a centimeter away.

I couldn't do it.

Why couldn't I just do it?

It had never been much of a problem for me before. I mean, yeah, in the first few missions, I would shake a lot and be nervous and freak out before I came in contact with the target.

But I had never five failed attempts. Five attempts! I had never even thought that that was a possibility, for a professional assassin like me to try to kill someone five times and not get caught. I was a complete failure to the Assassination Association, and to Miyabigaoka, and to my family and to the whole world in general.

What was wrong with me?

What was different this time round?

It couldn't just be about him treating it like it was a joke.

It couldn't just be because he was good-looking.

Why couldn't I kill him?

I chuck away the knife to the side somewhere and rolled off Takumi. I just lay there next to him, as I felt tears rushing to my eyes and spilling everywhere. I hadn't cried for a long time now. The last time was my third kill. This time was because I couldn't kill.

"Oh, Takumi," I whispered to the guy beside me. "Why can't I just kill you? What's so different about you? You so annoying and irritating and a weird alien and I think I probably hate you! I seriously hate you."

I heard the soft sound of him shaking his head. "Oh, no. The difference between me and the other targets is that you _like_ me."

He seriously was mentally retarded. I chuckled. That was supposed funny, right? He was joking. Right? "Ha. Takumi. You're kidding, aren't you?"

He didn't laugh with me. "I wasn't joking."

I sighed. "Err…Takumi. That's, like, the only thing that it can't be. You're so messed up and egotistical. How could _anyone_ like you?"

He turned over so that his head rested on his upper arm, he was lying on his side and he was facing me. He smiled slowly. "Aha. If it's not that 'like', then then it's the other like. You like me. Romantically."

I scoffed, hoping that he couldn't see my blush, in the darkness. "So what if I might think you're really hot. So what? Everyone thinks you're hot. You should hear the servants' hall! All the girls gossip about you all the time. Haha. It's so stupid," I said attempting to turn the atmosphere lighter.

He rolled over on top of me, pinning me to the ground. His face was close enough that I could feel his soft breath. I squeaked and tried to push him of me but he wouldn't budge. It was only now that I noticed all of his features properly: his pointed chin; his mesmerizing emerald eyes; his hair that no longer looked spiky but rather _soft_ ; his perfectly curved lips.

"It's not just about you thinking that I'm 'hot'," he whispered. "It's more than that, isn't it?"

"T-Takumi!" I stuttered. And why couldn't I just answer his question? "What are you doing? Get off me. Get off me! It's not funny."

"Answer the question. Then I'll get off." He smirked.

"No! I don't like you, Takumi," I sighed. "That's disgusting and just plain _wrong_ in so many ways. I am not allowed to like a target. I am not allowed to like my 'master'. I don't like egotistical annoying weirdo aliens like you. And how can I like in that way, if I don't even like you in the friend way? And, we've only known each other for a bit over two weeks. How am I supposed to have developed feelings for you in that short time? Idiot."

He made a shrugging sort of motion. "Well, what if _I'm_ interested in _you_?"

I froze for a few seconds before glaring at him. "I'm not one of your usual maids. You know that. Now will you get off me? I answered the question!"

"It doesn't count. You didn't answer truthfully."

"Did too!"

"Then why don't I believe you? I don't believe you, not for a second."

I steadied my gaze on him. "Don't try and twist what _I_ think to fit what _you_ want."

He rolled his eyes. "I'm not doing that, and you know it. Maybe you're not in love yet, but you're probably half in love with me already. Don't try and tell me otherwise."

"I don't like you in that way! I don't even like you in a friend way! I don't like you in any way! I've told you that before! Get off me!"

"No, not until you stop lying."

"I'm gonna scream! Someone will come, you know! And this looks really, really bad, you know!"

He didn't look like he would care. "Then everyone will see your ropes and your knife. That will look worse than what I'm doing to you."

"Ugh! You're such an old pervert! What do you want from me?" I huffed. "I'm not your usual girl and you can't buy me! I'm not going to be taken in by silly lies and promises."

"I wasn't going to buy you."

"Then what were you doing?" I scoffed.

He sighed. "I was trying to make you realise why you weren't able to kill me. It's alright, though, I'm not going to do any more. You look too creeped out now." He rolled off me and returned to lying on his back.

I got up immediately and gathered my things. "I won't try and kill you anymore. But don't expect me to ever talk to you again!"

And I furiously walked away, without taking another look at him.

* * *

 **Thanks for reading and reviewing and favouriting and following! The reviews from last chapter were from:** **WhiteAngel83,** **aqsashahanii123,** **Anime-freak-otaku01,** **IamGIO (twice :D),** **Jui2014,** **SakKim98,** **FluffyMarryKozakura,** **Tsuray,** **shannonjacob21,** **MystearicaBlaze,** **violet167,** **Winnie Tang,** **shannon0502** **and The Shadow Gryphon**


	6. A Perverted Outer-space Alien

**DISCLAIMER: Yeah, you guessed it. I don't own Kaichou wa Maid-sama.**

* * *

"Get the biggest sack that you have and then fill that with apples," I told Shizuko, who chuckled and filled a big brown sack full of crimson apples. I handed over some silver coins, said goodbye to Sakura and Shizuko, and made my way back to the palace to deliver the apples to one of the cooks – Hinata, or something - struggling slightly with the size and weight of the sack.

"Wow," a voice said next to me. "That's a lot of apples." I couldn't see over the huge sack in front of my face, but I was pretty certain who it was. His arm reached out to take an apple out of the sack, which I slapped away. The whole sack toppled out of my arms and onto the hard ground, and the apples started to roll down the hill.

"You complete imbecile," I spat out, staring hard into his green eyes with irritation. "You moron idiot dunce dimwit asshat pea-brain donkey knobhead weird outer-space alien imbecile!" I screamed, not bothering to notice the people looking, and ran to pick up all the apples.

"I thought you said you weren't talking to me?" Takumi said, half laughing at me. He leant down and helped me pick up the rest of the fallen apples.

I looked sideways at him while picking up the fruit. "That wasn't talking, that was yelling!" I snapped, putting his apples into the sack and marching off.

* * *

"Dinner!" yelled one of the cooks. The whole room erupted into cheers and everyone huddled around the long tables. I got a place in between Erika and Honoka, and was decorating my omelette rice with huge ketchup swirls.

"Yumm…yummm…yummmmmmm…" I mumbled happily, taking a big bite, while the others quietly laughed at me.

Honoka looked at me with amusement. "What, did you grow up in a sewer? The food here is utter crap. It's just leftovers."

I took another huge bite. "Well, I grew up in Miyabigaoka, and the difference between the rich and poor there is a lot worse than here. If this food is utter crap, the food there was like dirt that's been under a shoe for ten years. This stuff is gourmet, to me."

All the other maids looked at me with horror.

"Eww, that's disgusting," Erika said bluntly. We all laughed.

"But you lived in Miyabigaoka! That's so cool!" Honoka squealed excitedly. "Did you ever see the oldest prince there? Prince Tora? Some people say that he is better looking than our own prince Takumi!"

"No way…" Erika breathed. "That can't be true."

I nodded in agreement. "Yeah, that can't be true. I've seen Prince Tora a couple of times before, in carriages and stuff, but I think that Prince Takumi is much better looking."

"That's nice to know," Takumi's voice said cheerfully from behind me. I face palmed while everyone else in the room screamed or squeaked or ran away back to their bedrooms in fright. A couple of people bowed or curtsied to him politely.

Takumi slipped himself into the small space on the bench between me and Honoka, who was quietly freaking out. The whole room was silent and staring at our table.

"Hi, is there any beer here? I hear that the servants have tons of beer," he said loudly. Someone scurried over to the box of beer bottles and poured him a pint glass hurriedly. Takumi nodded at him in thanks and downed the pint.

"Why are you here?" I hissed quickly, so that only he could hear it.

"I only wanted to see your pretty face," he said at the top of his voice, just to tease me. Erika choked on laughter.

I tried very hard not to blush, and kicked him underneath the table.

He gave me a sideways grin. "Actually I wanted to talk to you," he said quietly. "Well, and the first thing too." Was that flirting I was hearing?

I glared at him. "Well, as I told you yesterday, I don't want to talk to you," I muttered angrily.

"Then why are you talking to me now?"

"I wasn't talking, I was muttering! And right now I'M YELLING!" I shouted, banging my fist on the hard wooden table in infuriation and took the whole platter of omelette rice with me when I went back to my room.

* * *

"You there? Bring afternoon tea up to Prince Usui," one of the servants said loudly, pointing at me. I groaned. I had no choice, because I was the only parlour maid not doing any work.

I started to make my way down to the kitchen reluctantly, where I got a tray of hot tea, and went back upstairs to the prince's room.

Ugh. Why did I have to do this? It would be kind of very awkward for me…and I really didn't want to talk to him, because I _did_ tell him several times that I wasn't going to. Should I break my promise and just kill him already? The promise wouldn't really matter, because he would be dead anyway…

"AHH!" a voice went.

"AHHHHHH!" I screamed back, as I fell backwards. The tray tipped over and sloshed onto the floor, all in a matter of a second.

A person with flat, dark hair, in a black suit, was on the floor in front of me, and a valet, who looked surprisingly like Sideburns the butler from my maid try-out, was standing next to him in shock.

"Ahh! I'm so sorry!" I squealed. "I'm so clumsy sometimes!"

The valet looked like he was about to say something angrily to me, but the person on the floor held up his hand, silencing him. He looked up at me, and I realised that he had a very familiar, very handsome face.

"Uhh…Master Takumi, why are you wearing a wig?" I asked him without thinking.

Angry Valet looked very angry. Takumi-In-A-Wig looked appalled. I probably looked freaked out.

Suddenly, I noticed that Takumi-In-A-Wig had light blue eyes rather than Normal Takumi's bright emerald green ones. Contact lenses? No, it couldn't be. They had slightly different jawlines, and different expressions.

No, this had to be Takumi's older brother. The King's oldest grandchild. Son of Princess Patricia. Target #2. Heir to the Throne of Seika. The first Prince. Gerald Walker.

"I'm sorry, Your Highness! I mistook you for your younger brother!" I said, bowing my head in apology.

He looked rather surprised. "Interesting. People never mistake me for Takumi, but rather the other way around. Are you the girl all the servants are talking about, the one that is in a relationship with my brother?"

I stared at him for several seconds and then blinked. "I'm not 'in a relationship' with the prince!" I protested loudly.

Gerald looked mildly confused. "Then, last night, why did he say, and I quote from Cedric here –" he gestured at Angry Valet, "–'I only wanted to see your pretty face'?"

I sighed. "That was just to wind me up, I think, sir. We aren't dating or anything."

"Why does he want to wind you up?"

"I-I don't quite know, sir," I replied.

He narrowed his eyes. "Well, alright. I will choose to believe you when you say you aren't in a relationship. However, if he shows any more interest in you, I suggest that you don't let him, or then you will get kicked out of the palace. He has no future with a mere maid."

* * *

After that, I had to clean up the broken teapot and cups and make new tea in the kitchen. Then I had to go back upstairs to Takumi's room.

I sighed and knocked on the door, carefully balancing the tray on my arm. "Afternoon tea, master!" I called.

"Yeah, come in!" he yelled back loudly.

I turned the handle and came into the room and put the tray down on the glass coffee table next to the sofa where he was reading manga.

"Hello, Ayuzawa," he said without looking up. "I recognised your footsteps. Clumsy and awkward, not like a maid's should be." He looked up and gave me a smirk.

I resisted the strong urge to say a snide comment about cows, donkeys and certain blonde haired green eyed alien. "How awkward, sir, I don't quite know what you mean." I told him with a very awkward laugh. I poured the tea from the teapot into the teacup and put it on a saucer.

He rolled his eyes at me. "How very mature, pretending you don't know me. You can do what you like, but I still need to talk to you about your other job."

I bowed my head in apology. "I don't quite know what you are talking about, sir. This is my only job. Maybe you are confusing me with another maid. Anyway, I do have another errand that I have to get to urgently, sir," I lied. "Perhaps I could recommend another maid for you to talk to?"

Takumi sighed. "Alright, go off and do your little 'errand'. We'll talk later."

* * *

Turns out my next errand would be to clean up the king's vomit in his private dining room. Apparently the meal served to him was disgusting. The cook and the maid who delivered the food had both already been kicked out of the palace, and that scared me. If I tried to poison him and it didn't work, I wouldn't get another chance.

Frankly, I stank of barf now. People in the corridors wrinkled their noses at me and Honoka bluntly told me that I smelled like a mix of rotten eggs and body odour.

After a thorough shower, I started to eat. I was rather late for dinner, so all that was left was soggy lettuce, beer and stale baguette bread. I didn't feel like eating much after that horrifying experience, so I just sipped on beer hoping that it would fill me up well.

I suddenly noticed people looking at me and whispering. Did I still stink? No, it was probably just the rumours about me and that stupid weird perverted gorgeous idiotic outer-space alien – wait did I just think the word 'gorgeous'? I silently freaked out by myself before the next thing happened.

"AAAHHHHHHHHHH!" Honoka's voice screamed. Everyone in the room turned to look at her. She had just gone into the bedroom but had stopped, looking as if she had seen a ghost.

"What is it?" asked Subaru running towards girl. "Robbers?"

"N-no," she mumbled. "It's His Highness Takumi, p-peeking through Misa-chan's u-underwear."

The hall erupted into laughter and a bit of cheering from some guys, while I screamed and barged straight into the room. Sure enough, Takumi was going through my underwear drawer.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO MY UNDERWEAR, YOU PERVERTED OUTER-SPACE ALIEN?!" I screamed.

He looked up. "Oh, hello. I was waiting for you."

"I ASKED WHAT YOU WERE DOING TO MY UNDERWEAR, IDIOT!"

He chuckled, "Oh that. Funny story. Satsuki told me that I wasn't allowed on the servants' floor, and stationed guards to watch the entrance of the hall. So I climbed on the outside of the building and jumped through this window. And then I realised that this was your room and got distracted by this underwear drawer. I like the black lace sets, by the way. I didn't think you owned that sort of kinky stuff."

I glared at him fiercely. "Pervert!"

Honoka paled. "You shouldn't be thinking about that, but how he climbed from the third floor to the fourth floor on the outside…"

Someone whispered from the main hall, "He's actually mad." I strongly agreed with that person.

"Yeah, why on earth would you do that, idiot?" I snapped. "So you wanted to talk to me. You didn't have to do that."

He shrugged. "You were pretending that you didn't know me. It wasn't like you were going to talk to me anyway."

A girl's voice from outside said rather loudly, probably not intentionally, "Lovers' spat!", and a chorus of other girls started giggling.

I sighed. "I'm not talking here. Come on." I dragged him by his sleeve out of the hall and down a few staircases, before I figured that I didn't really even know where we were even going. "Uhh…got any secret places that no one will listen in?"

"Yeah," he said flatly, and led me in the direction of his bedroom.

We made our way over there and locked and bolted the main door.

"So what did you want to talk to me about?" I asked.

"I just wanted to say something to you," he said slowly and then smiled with amusement. "I heard that you cleaned up my grandfather's vomit today, right?"

I rolled my eyes. "Get on with it."

"Well, I'd just like to say that that is the closest that you're going to ever get to him, at the rate you're going at."

I scowled, feeling very offended, at the same time as feeling like what he had just said was very true.

"If you're hoping to ever get anywhere in this mission, I think that you need an insider's help. Someone who knows the King's timetable, hobbies and weaknesses and all that. In other words, me."

I scoffed at him. "I can do the mission on my own, thank you very much. I don't need you. Anyway, why would you offer your help to me?"

He sighed. "Would you like me to tell my life story?"

* * *

 _*Usui talking*_

There was once a beautiful princess living in this palace. She was called Patricia. When she was eighteen, she was forcibly married unhappily to a rich lord, who had only married her to become King. She had a young son who she loved very much, called Gerald. You may know him. Anyway.

She had a manservant. I don't know his first name, but his last name was Usui. Patricia fell in love with Usui. After a few months, the king, Richard, realised that she was pregnant, and a thorough investigation went around when Patricia's husband said that it couldn't be his. They found that it was Usui and the King was furious.

So the King ordered Usui to be executed. The manservant was completely tortured. Partly burned, partly drowned, hanged until almost dead, and then ripped apart by four horses. And the princess was forced to watch it all. It was so bad for her that the maids worried that she would miscarry.

The day after, she slit her own throat with a knife and died. She was eight months pregnant. They had to cut the baby out to save it. I mean, me. Talking in third person about myself feels very weird. But besides that, I was born! April the twenty-seventh. I hear that I was a very cute baby. Anyway.

They covered up the suicide saying that she died in childbirth. And that guy, Patricia's husband, he was kicked out the palace because he wasn't her husband anymore and wasn't in line to the throne.

And the baby, me, was taken to live up in the north. I didn't have a nice childhood filled with nice childhood memories. No, my first memory was of a guard telling me that the orders from the King were to kill me the very second that Gerald had his first child. I was only kept alive to be an emergency heir to the throne, if something happened to Gerald, because the King wanted to keep the Walker blood ruling Seika.

Some guards felt sorry for me, a tiny little cute adorable charming seven year old boy, so they made a plan to sneak me out of the castle one day, and raise me as a normal peasant. They were found out, and all fifty of the guards working in the palace were hanged. Most of them weren't even involved in the plan to sneak me out, but the king wasn't bothered to find out which ones were. There weren't enough skilled guards to take care of me up in the castle in the north anymore, so I was moved to live in Raven Palace, here.

My brother really used to hate me. After a couple of years, Gerald and I grew closer. Just a bit.

By the way, by the time I was seven, I still hadn't been named properly. People generally called me 'boy'. I was supposed to dress up as a servant and pretend that I was one. A 'seen and not heard' type of thing. One day, I slipped into a party. One of the guests thought I looked startlingly alike to Patricia, and assumed that I was the second son that people had talked about. They asked what my name was, and Gerald managed to make it up on the spot. Takumi. So it stuck, I suppose.

And then Gerald fell ill one day when I was thirteen, and the doctor identified it as an illness that has no cure. The public thinks that he will die in three to five years. But now the doctor says that he will last not more than half a year.

And then my life kind of got boring. I got introduced to public when the King decided to treat me like the heir instead of Gerald. Oh, and then I met you. I'm not bored anymore, so thank you.

And then yeah…

 _*End of Life Story*_

* * *

"That was a very sad life story," I told him, patting his shoulder. "You seem much deeper than I thought you ever were. I think that it is actually very kind of you to want to kill the King so that your brother can get his place on the throne."

"Actually, I made half of that stuff up to make it seem more exciting…"

"I hate you."

He laughed.

"So what's your real motive for wanting the King dead?" I asked him.

He shrugged. "He's just not a good king. He likes bribes, so if a rich person did something against the law, they can pay him, to stay alive. It's turned the country rotten. And also, I like you a lot, and I don't really like my grandfather, so I'll choose you. You're much more interesting than him. And you like me back, but my grandfather hates me."

I made a loud _humph_ of annoyance. "Yeah, but _I don't like you_. Can't you get that into that pea sized brain of yours? I don't have enough time or crayons to explain that to you!"

He sighed. "No, you're just in denial. You have some kind of messed up psychological problems where you can't admit that you like someone!"

"Yeah, and that's called being an assassin! I am not allowed to admit that I like a target, and I won't!" I snapped.

He smiled slowly. "So you do like me, you just don't want to admit it."

"You're annoying!"

Takumi laughed.

I sniffled. "Why are you so obsessed with proving it? You're so messed up."

"I don't really know," he replied. "I think it really entertains me to see you irritated. You're not like anyone I've ever met before, and you interest me."

"Well, I don't like you! You're so annoying!"

"I really do think you do. I'll just have to get some proof," he replied, and did the unthinkable.

He reached out and pulled me close to him, one hand on my waist and the other behind my neck. I closed my eyes and melted as my whole body was consumed in his kiss.

* * *

 **I hope you liked this chapter! Thanks for all the reviews! Leave a review please, because they are really fun to read and always make me smile :)**


	7. The Festival Begins

**DISCLAIMER: Yeah, yeah, you know already -_-**

 **I'm going to be uploading a lot slower than I usually do because school has started. Ugh, we are starting our GSCE course and I'm kind of stressed.**

 **And I'd just like to take a moment to thank the internet for having a Japanese Name Generator. I'm crap at making up names and have used that countless times.**

 **Anyway, on with the story…  
**

* * *

I couldn't stop thinking about that idiot.

 _That_ had ruined my life. I wasn't making any progress on getting information on the King, and I was breaking more plates than ever.

Takumi had not only taken over my thoughts during the daytime, but had also invaded my dreams in the night. I no longer had nightmares about dead victims, but now of _him_. And I wasn't sure whether to be happy about that or not. The dreams were weird. I had never had anything like them before. They were so embarrassing I couldn't even think of them without being utterly humiliated.

But what terrified me the most was how I kissed him back just as passionately as he did to me.

And it wasn't even like I liked him.

Right?

…Right?

It's strange how just one kiss can completely change how you see someone. I had never thought of Takumi as anything more than a perverted outer-space alien. Now he seemed more like a human, someone with complex feelings just like mine, someone with soft lips and hair a million shades of gold and mesmerizing eyes the color of emerald. Someone who tasted just like bittersweet chocolate.

I shuddered. I had somehow managed to seriously creep out myself. _Snap out of it, Misaki. Focus._

I marched up the corridor and turned to face his door, with a sigh. _Come on. Just get it over with. You can do this_ , I told myself reassuringly, and knocked on the door.

* * *

"I'm not really hungry -" Takumi began but paused right after he saw me, and gave me a flat annoyed look. "Oh, Misaki. Nice of you to come. How would you like to ignore me today?"

I winced. For the past week or so, after I ran away from him on that day, I had avoided having to meet him at all costs. If I was forced to go and bring him food or clean his room, I would not talk to him. If I had to, I would pretend that I was just an ordinary maid and he was an ordinary prince. And that nothing would have ever happened between us in a thousand years.

"I need to talk to you," I told him.

He looked surprised. "Come on in then." He made moved a step away from the door, still keeping his hand firmly on there, forcing me to go underneath his arm, to his amusement. I glared at him, and entered the room.

"So what would you like to talk about?" he asked pleasantly.

I shot him a furious glare. "You know… _that_."

He smiled. "Oh, do enlighten me on what 'that' is. I don't quite know." Ugh, he never failed to irritate me.

"You know what I'm talking about!" I hissed. "Don't make me say it."

"Oh, I thought we were pretending _'_ that' didn't happen," he said sarcastically, but he had a hurt expression on his face.

I sighed. "Yeah, I know. I've thought it through and I realized that I need to face you. Because…I've been having weird dreams. I was just wondering if you made me swallow some weird potion of some kind through our, um, mouths. The type of potion that makes me feel weird and…tingly when I'm around you."

He chuckled and I kicked him in the shin angrily. "So you _did_ feed me a potion!"

Takumi laughed again. "No, I'm laughing because you're being idiotic. You really think I made you swallow a potion? No, you're just deluding yourself. And you've given me a lot more proof than I even thought I would get."

I raised an eyebrow. "Proof? What are you jabbering on about?"

His mouth curled into one of his trademark smirks. "Well, did you forget that you kissed me back?"

I felt heat rising to my cheeks and I twirled around so that he wouldn't see my blush. "That didn't happen," I said shakily.

"There you go again, deluding yourself."

I scowled and took a deep breath. "If that did happen – and I'm just saying, theoretically – I just got caught up in the moment, alright?" I said in a small voice.

He sighed. "Why does it matter anyway? It was just a kiss. Don't you think you're making a big deal out of it?"

I wrinkled my face up in distaste. "I'm making a big deal out of it b-because I spent six years of my life barely talking to people and now…you…" I paused and took a deep breath. "It's changed me more than I could have ever thought. It's probably not a big deal for you because, like you just said, it was 'just a kiss'. It's not important to you."

In a flash, he was facing me, and was near – too near – to my face. "I'm sorry, but did you ever realize that you might be hurting my feelings, by saying this stuff?" he whispered into my ear.

I was frozen to the spot. _Move, you pathetic fool_ , my mind was screaming, but my body didn't seem to be listening. I had to move, or he would do something like _that_ again.

I moved my fingers and managed to pinch the inside side of my arm, hard. Pain sparked, and my body came alive again. My legs toppled backwards and I fell onto the floor. The floor was always bad. That little pervert could pin me down and kiss me again. I pulled myself up and made my way back to the door.

I paused at the door and looked back at him. He hadn't moved. His eyes looked empty, just like how I was feeling.

Why wasn't he running after me? A part of me wished he would.

But he just stood there staring at me sadly.

Then I knew: tonight's dreams would not be Takumi-free. This 'encounter' had not helped anything. If anything at all, the situation had become even worse.

It was like there was a door that opened up the human side that had been hidden deep inside me, and when I was around him, bits of human emotion came out bit by bit. The kiss was like a key that had thrown the door open. And now I was overflowing with the emotions that I had tried hard to conceal for six years.

That just made me like him so much more.

I sighed before giving up on shaking the thought out my head. Well, why should I have to blank that thought out of my head? As long as I kept my secrets in my head, no damage was done. Right?

* * *

I never thought that I would even think this, but I kind of missed him.

It had been seven days now and he didn't make a single attempt to find me. I would even rather have one of his infiltrations into the servants' quarters than this strange silence.

"You're moping," Honoka told me in irritation, at the dinner table. "Seriously. You're depressing us all now. Cheer up, or I'll smack you. Anyway, what happened, did your prince throw you away?" She looked at me mockingly.

I gave her a fierce glare and she took that as a 'yes'. Honoka cackled like a witch while Erika smacked her on the head several times.

"You poor thing," said Erika after finishing her round of smacking. "I know just what will cheer you up. The festival is starting tomorrow!"

I looked at her blankly. "Er…festival?" I asked.

"You know, the festival? It lasts two weeks? In the town? Starts with a parade? Ends with a big ball in the palace? No?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about," I told her honestly.

"It's the one that's celebrating Prince Takumi's 18th birthday!" Honoka called out cheerfully.

Erika scowled at Honoka. "Idiot. How is telling her that meant to cheer her up?"

She started another round of smacking while Honoka screamed and flailed helplessly, but we were all laughing.

Later that night, I checked the noticeboard. Sure enough, there was a sheet of paper with a schedule written in an untidy scrawl, on it. I struggled to read it, but I managed to decipher it.

 _Servants' Schedule for His Highness the Second Prince's Coming of Age – 13th April to 27th April_

 _ **13th April** 12:00 NOON-1:00PM – Opening Parade, 2:00PM-6:00PM – Sword Fighting Tournament_

 _ **14th April** – Opening of the festival fair_

 _ **15th April** 2:00PM-5:00PM – Bake-off (ingredients must be brought by the contestant though they will be checked thoroughly for drugs etc.)_

 _ **16th April** 7:00PM-10:00PM – Performances from many renowned actors and performers, tickets being sold_

 _ **17th April** 7:00PM-10:00PM – Performances from many renowned musicians, tickets being sold_

 _ **18th April** 6:00PM-10:00PM - Talent Show, open for all_

 _ **19th April** 5:00PM-10:00PM– Beer Drinking Competition (servants are seriously recommended not to participate)_

 _ **20th April** 3:00PM-7:00PM **–**_ _Jousting Tournament_ _(ALL servants will start to prepare for the Royal Ball)_

 _ **21st April –**_ _more work to be done at palace_

 _ **22nd April –**_ _Arrival Procession of 200 soldiers from the Royal Seikan Army & General of the Army_ _(Welcome Dinner for General and Senior Officers)_

 _ **23rd April** 3:00PM-5:00PM – __Book Reading in Town Square for children_ _(more work to be done at palace)_

 _ **24th April –** Tarot Card Readings all day - Arrival of Guests - Welcome Banquet at Palace_

 _ **25th April**_ ** _-_** _Closing of the fair_ _(_ _Arrival of Catering)_

 _ **26th April** 6:00PM-9:00PM – __Music in Town Square (_ _Arrival of Entertainment)_

 _ **27th April** 8:00PM-2:00AM - Royal Ball, open for only those with invitations_

I read it over twice. So on the week leading up to the ball, I would be working non-stop. But on the week before, I could go out to the festival in my free time. With a happy smile, I made my way across the hall, to the bedroom.

All seven of the maids were squished onto a single upper bunk bed.

"Hey! Mail!" Erika said cheerfully and tossed me a kind of white envelope with a red blob of cheap wax sealing it shut.

I smiled back at her in thanks and opened the letter. I knew that there was no chance that my real family could have written it, but I prayed silently, took out a crumpled piece of paper and read it through quickly.

 _Dear Misaki,_

 _How are you doing? Until three days ago, I thought that you had died or something! Really, not sending a letter immediately after arrival is unacceptable. Remember that I am your mother and don't you ever forget about us! You really worried us! Unacceptable, I say._

 _Papa broke his leg again in the forest. And yes, he was trying to go hunting again! 'No hunting', I told him last time. 'Don't ever do that again.' Keeping promises is so hard for your stupid father. I really don't like him very much sometimes. Looking after those scary hunting dogs is so expensive, too. Like, really expensive. Then, I told him that I was going to sell the dogs because they were so scary and hard to look after. He wouldn't talk to me for a week. Even now, he glares at me. That man!_

 _Anyway, I hope you're doing well! Reply soon. Get some stuff for us for when you come back home. Either nice clothes, or sweets for your little sister. Try to get a week off work to visit home soon! See you then!_

 _Mother_

I sighed in disappointment. It was just a dumb letter from the Association. They had put a stupid code in. It wasn't even fun to figure out. The second I read the first paragraph, I had figured what kind of code it was. It was just about the simplest code there was, meaning that they really didn't think that the letter had any chance of being intercepted. The message was taken from the first letter of each word, making this sentence: _HURRY UP AND KILL THE TARGETS._

 _Yeah, yeah, I know_ , I thought miserably. Because of all of what had happened with Takumi and the festival and my seemingly normal life, I had almost forgotten. I had forgotten that I did not have a normal life and I was not a normal human. I was an assassin, and assassins were emotionless weapons. An assassin can never have a truly ordinary life, much less falling in love with a target.

* * *

"Hurry up, girls!" called Satsuki from the hall. She had decided to take all the parlour maids out to see the parade, because she had been one of the maids not so long ago, and was good friends with some of them.

Honoka made a face. "Wait, will you? I'm putting on my makeup! I have to look nice for the parade!"

There was a loud gasp from Satsuki. "Oh, yes! I can't believe I forgot!"

"I should touch up my makeup too," Aoi's voice said. They both rushed into the cramped bedroom and crowded the small mirror area even more, to the maids' irritation.

"Aah! Misaki! Get your dress on already!" Erika snapped, chucking the dress at me.

Aoi had lent it to me because Satsuki had asked him, since I had nothing that looked pretty. But this dress was a bit too pretty. It was very light silver with black lace, made of silk. The top part was tight and sleeveless, and the skirt part billowed out in a cute small poof. I could still wear my knife holster because it went lower than the knees, but it was too eye-catching for me to even think of wearing.

After a lot of pushy maids forcing me into it, I looked at myself in the mirror. I was right; it was too pretty for an emotionless weapon like me to wear it. But the others dragged me out the palace all the way to the main road, which was usually taken up with market.

The road would have looked terribly empty if the street sidewalks weren't absolutely packed with people. Erika cursed when she saw the crowds and that the parade had already started. Horse drawn floats, decorated with bright flowers and so on, were slowly moving down the road. We slid into a position, three-quarters of the way down the road, close to the palace. Forty minutes later, the last floats were passing. No sign of the King, obviously. If I had been in the palace for a month and hadn't seen him once, why would I see him now?

Takumi and his brother were in the second last one. I glared at him fiercely while the others looked mildly worried for my sanity. _Screw you for ruining my life as an assassin_ , I thought angrily and lifted my hand in front of my chest so it wasn't so noticeable, and stuck my middle finger up.

Honoka squealed, Erika tried to cover my finger, and Subaru shook her head slowly, looking ashamed. I didn't blame them. I could probably get hanged for something as simple as this.

He looked in my direction and in one second, we made eye contact. I looked away, feeling irritated, but in the corner of my eye, I saw him smirk. But what could you expect? I smiled slightly, without wanting to.

"Aaah! Wasn't that parade just so cute?" Satsuki squealed after the parade finished. "Well, what do you want to do now?"

"Let's go watch the sword fighting tournament," Subaru replied. "We get a day off today, so it would be a waste to go back to the castle."

Everyone agreed and after getting a quick lunch, we made our way over to the park nearby. There were stands set up in a formation that transformed the park into a makeshift stadium. There was also a table of judges and another table, where people were writing down their names on a piece of paper and then handing it over to the judges.

"Hey, I think I'm going to sign up," I told the others. This was a good chance to train, since I was seriously behind on training. There was no need to win, because it would draw attention to myself. It was okay to lose just one time, if it was for a purpose.

Honoka looked very surprised. "But you're in a dress…"

"I'll be fine," I replied.

"Well, you go win then," Subaru told me with a smile, and they went to go sit in the stands.

I scrawled my name onto the long list and counted. I seemed to be the last, so I had eighteen competitors. That was very low for a town as populated as this one, but sword fighting was not a popular skill to learn anymore, unless you were in the army. But the army was elsewhere right now, so there were barely any contestants.

And as far as I knew, I was the only girl there. How awkward for me. I shuffled over to the centre of the 'stadium' where a small crowd of burly participants had formed.

"I'm gonna beat ya all!" roared one man.

"Nonsense, young man. I am the national champion of sword fighting," a fancy posh man in a waistcoat stated.

"National champion? I know you aren't. I won the competition six years ago for Prince Gerald's coming of age! So I shall win again!" another rich guy snapped.

"Wot you goin' on about? Ya posh arses are givin' me a headache," the first guy yelled, throwing a punch at the guy in the waistcoat which pushed him onto the ground.

"How dare you?" snapped his friend, kicking the first guy in the gut.

"Disqualified," a voice said cheerfully. "All three of you. Any kind of childishness isn't allowed here, sorry. Escort these three out of the stadium, please," the woman said, glancing over at some gruff-looking guards.

Silence fell over the stadium as the three were dragged out kicking and screaming. The woman turned back to us. "Sorry about that! Anyway, let's start already. Welcome to all of our contestants and spectators! And a special welcome to our prince!"

All heads turned to the central box in the stands. His brother had left already, but Takumi was sitting there, with a few bodyguards. He made an awkward wave to the crowd that I thought was kind of unlike him.

"The tournament is in four rounds: the first round, the second round, semi-finals and the finals. Each time, it is just one vs one. The first one to admit defeat or be unable to continue due to injury loses. No killing or you'll be disqualified, and frankly you'll probably be thrown in prison too. The one who wins will progress to the next round.

"Now, about the prizes. If you win, you get a big trophy and three hundred gold coins! However, there aren't any prizes for second or third. Oh, and swords will be provided. Also: armor isn't allowed. It makes it more exciting for the crowd." She winked. "Now that there are sixteen people, it will work out perfectly. So take a bit of paper out of the hat."

Everyone freaked out about the no-armor rule, as she walked around and each person stuck their hand into a hat. I took at a piece of paper, saying '3A'.

The crowd loved the first match, but it finished after only five minutes and one person was carried off in a stretcher. The second match took longer – almost twenty minutes full of suspense. Eventually, one of the swords got stabbed into someone's shoulder and they got dragged off by the paramedics.

"Next: 3A - Misaki Ayuzawa and 3B - Namboku Otake."

I walked to the equipment table and inspected each one. There were long-swords, katana, rapiers, broadswords, and so on. I took a light long-sword that fit my speed well, and rolled my dress up a bit so that I could run.

A huge muscled guy in a red t-shirt was waiting there, with his giant two-handed broadsword, which he had picked out in only a few seconds.

"Hey, I'm not one to enjoy fighting girls, so I'll go easy on you if you want," he sneered.

I returned that with a grin that I couldn't stop. Well, he couldn't really help it that he had to fight a top-class assassin. It amused me that he was underestimating me so much, but I had the urge to say an extremely rude retort that would no doubt get me kicked out the competition. I averted my eyes, still smiling.

"Hey, what's so funny?" he snapped.

"I won't say it, because it's not really worth it," I replied.

"Tell me!"

I sighed. "I'll just tell you this: don't you dare underestimate me, idiot."

He looked outraged and the second after the lady called, "Go!", he started charging at me, slowly but angrily, just like a bull. I dodged his attack swiftly and quickly assessed the situation. It would be difficult to try to get close to him with that giant sword of his. But if I threw my sword perfectly, there would be no reason to worry about being unarmed.

It hit his left thigh. He stopped running, and fell to his knees, howling in pain. Blood oozed down his legs and formed a small puddle on the ruined grass when he had been standing. He stared up at me in shock as the paramedics rushed to him and dragged him off.

"And there we have it, folks! After seventeen seconds, Misaki Ayuzawa, the only girl here, is the winner of Match Three!" yelled the cheerful lady through a microphone. The crowds went started to chant my name over and over. I smiled happily and walked back to the huddle of shocked contestants.

"Well, I knew your match would be fast," a very familiar voice said from behind.

I jerked my head in his direction and groaned. "How did you even – no, I'm not going to even ask."

He glanced over at the stands where the 'prince' was. "Oh, that? I just got my valet Kuuga to swap clothes and impersonate me, right after the parade. I'm using his name too."

"Idiot," I said trying to keep a cold glare steady on my face, though my heart was beating. "Why on earth would you do that? You'll get caught."

Takumi smirked. "Because I knew you would enter this, and the only way to get you to stop ignoring me is to beat you in the finals."

"I was ignoring you?" I said, surprised.

"Um, weren't you?"

"What are you fricking talking about? You were ignoring me!" I snapped.

"No, I wasn't. At least, I don't think I was."

My lips curled into a smile. "Well, I wasn't ignoring you. And I'm glad you weren't ignoring me. But I'm going to win this tournament." Ugh, what was I saying? That would only draw unneeded attention to myself.

"Oh? You are?"

"Definitely."

"5A - Matsudaira Tatsuno and 5B - Kuuga Sakurai!" the lady called.

"Good luck," I said quietly. "You better win, so I can thrash you in the finals."

He grinned. "Of course," he said, bowing mockingly, and walked to the weapon station.

I watched his every move. He picked out a gladius, to my surprise. Because of the short length of the sword, he would have to be extremely fast to get close to his opponent, unless he wanted to throw it like I did. His opponent had an average build but had a very long sword.

"Start!"

In a flash, Takumi was right behind his opponent, who looked terrified. Then in another swift movement, the gladius was jutting into the side of the opponent's torso. That might mean a broken rib. He screamed and hit the ground hard, while Takumi looked away with guilt in his eyes. But who could blame him? He had been brought up far differently than the rest of the opponents and me.

"After a record of seven seconds, Kuuya Sakurai is the winner!"

The crowd went wild, cheering his 'name', while I rolled my eyes. He was fast, but he wasn't ruthless like me. That meant that I had a clear advantage.

The rest of the tournament went by like a breeze. The next two rounds took little effort on my part. The second opponent took forty-two seconds to beat, and the third took a bit over a minute. Takumi would be my next opponent, and my last one.

"It's the final! 3A – Misaki Ayuzawa and 5B – Kuuga Sakurai! Both have done extremely well to get this far. Oh, and don't forget to place your bets on who will win!" the commentator said through the microphone.

I glanced over at the betting hut. According to the crowd, the chance of me winning was nineteen percent. I probably had a really pissed off face at that moment.

We both walked to the weapons table. I picked up the same lightweight long-sword that I had used in the other rounds. And to my irritation, he took a sword that was identical to mine.

"Hey! Can you not?" I snapped.

"What are you going on about?" he said flatly. "I'm _only_ picking my weapon."

"Fine, you can do whatever you like," I scowled and turned on my heel, towards the middle of the stadium. He followed me a few seconds behind.

I smirked and I could feel my competitive side awakening. "Get ready. I won't go easy on you," I told him with a haughty air.

"I wouldn't want you to," he replied.

"And…start!" yelled the commentator lady.

I charged towards him with bloodlust in my eyes. _You're going to pay for turning me into this pathetic state, Takumi._

* * *

 **Don't worry, this competition thing isn't pointless. I finally finished writing up my plan, and, yes, this is leading somewhere. Anyway, I hope you liked his chapter :D and sorry that it's so late. I'll try to write chapters within a month next time.**


	8. Random Thugs

**DISCLAIMER: I don't know why I bother writing one out every chapter.**

 **Yay! At 3000 views and nearly at 100 reviews! Literally, whenever I see a new review or favourite or follow, I get so happy :)**

* * *

I charged towards him with bloodlust in my eyes. _You're going to pay for turning me into this pathetic state, Takumi._

He dodged my attack nimbly and retreated off about twenty metres away, behind the massive trunk of the oak tree. I cursed and dashed after him. By the time I got there, he was gone again. He wasn't left, right, behind and not in front of me. The only way he could have escaped me was climbing up. So I hitched up my dress with a scowl and grabbed a low branch, and pulled myself up with a bit of difficulty.

Something kept pounding on my head but I ignored it. He was getting higher and higher and I was getting too far away from him. Yet, the hammering on my head happened again and again. Irritated, I caught whatever it was, and groaned.

"Acorns?" I yelled upwards, towards him. "Seriously?"

He cackled like a madman or a complete idiot, and chucked a handful of them down onto my head. Then he vanished, and with a glance to the left, I realised that he had jumped from all the way from the top of the tree. I panicked for his safety for a second, but then he got up and waved up at me. I found myself smiling; he never ceased to amaze me.

 _Stop smiling, idiot. This stupidity is exactly why he has to pay._

I jumped onto him, using him to cushion my fall, while he grumbled in pain. "Hey, aren't you going to take this seriously?"

He shrugged. "Oh, I'm taking this _plenty_ seriously."

I crossed my arms and glared at him. "No, you're not. Acorns are not a proper weapon."

"Are too."

"Are not!" I snapped. "Just fight me with a sword already."

"I'll use my acorns if I want," he replied with a flat face, and pelted me with another handful of acorns. I ducked under and scowled at him.

"You're just messing with me, aren't you?" I snarled. "Well, I am not messing around one bit. I am so certain that I'm going to win, that if I lose, I'll become your personal maid for a whole month!"

I almost smacked my own head because of my stupidity. My mind was screaming for me to shut up, but I kept talking.

"But if I win, then I will have no obligation at all to talk to you. And you can't talk to me unless I talk to you."

A smile crept up onto his face. "One whole month of you? You really are sure you'll win, aren't you?"

"Yup."

"Well then," he replied. "I think I'll take up this challenge. This'll be interesting."

"Alright. Get ready," I said, leaning forwards and arching the arm holding my sword back.

"Don't get too cocky, Little-Miss-Nineteen-Percent-Chance-Of-Winning."

I rolled my eyes in irritation but had a big smile on my face. "No, you don't get too cocky. The crowd is going to be so sorry that they put their money on you."

I lunged towards him with my sword held high. Takumi darted aside and swung his sword towards my shoulder. I turned quickly and parried the attack with my own sword, with a loud clang. Our swords both pushed against each other, but when it was apparent that our strength was rather evenly matched, we both bounced back a couple of metres, without saying a single word.

The next time, he was the one to attack first. He ducked when I tried to stab his arm, and spun around, so that he was behind me. He was fast, but not fast enough. When he swung his sword, mine clashed against his and, for a few tense seconds, we were pushing each other with our swords. The cheering crowd slipped away from my mind; it was just me and him. I moved my sword away and darted away a few steps.

He charged straight at me. _He really did want that whole month of me being his private maid, didn't he? That little pervert_ , I thought, and smiled without wanting to. Well, that was _not_ going to happen anyway. There was no way that I would ever do something like that.

I ducked under when he was less than a metre away, and kicked him hard. He moved before I could kick his area, but the shin was still alright. He winced in pain but kept his position. I slashed my sword across his torso area, thinking I had finally got him, but he had dodged back and his sword clashed against mine once again. I pulled my sword back and pushed him back by stabbing forward. If I could push him all the way to a tree and then deliver my finishing blow, I could win. But he spun around and jumped all the way over me, and made an attack.

"Ugh!" I scowled and spoke between _clangs_ of our swords. We were so evenly matched that was aggravating. "Can't – you – just – fricking – go – down – already?"

He sighed. "Sometimes I seriously wonder why I even fell in love with a cranky girl like you."

I froze in my position while he chuckled. Wait…what? Did he just…did he…?

My mind was going into overload. Some kind of emotion filled me up. Happiness? _Don't you dare smile, you little creep_ , my mind was screaming at my face. _This idiot is the reason your mission is failing terribly._ I closed my eyes and when I opened them again, I was praying that nothing showed on my face.

"Do you see what you've turned me into, idiot?" I screamed and karate kicked him in the face, which made him stagger back several steps.

"Not a good day to be wearing a dress, Misa-chan," he smirked. "And polkadot panties, for that matter –"

I kicked him four more times in the chest, screaming a battle cry, and punched him in the face. I don't even think I had my sword anymore. I had dropped it on the ground a couple of minutes ago. It didn't matter to me anyway. All that mattered to me was beating this idiot to a pulp, regardless that I was 'unarmed'.

And out of nowhere, he kicked me in the stomach. I staggered backwards, coughing a tiny bit of blood, and he kicked me again, this time on my right thigh. Without the strength to stand, I fell onto the ground, groaning. He dropped his sword and pinned me down.

"Hey, not in public, stupid!" I told him, blushing.

He smirked. "And you think _I'm_ the pervert. I was just going to do this." He raised his hand over my face, and flicked the centre of my forehead. I blinked. "See? I think that's a very nice revenge blow, after all those punches and kicks you did on me."

I glared back at him. "Ha. Ha. Getting a bit full of yourself, aren't you? You really thought you had won already?"

In a split second, I grabbed the hilt of his sword, and stabbed his arm as deeply as I could go in this limited space. He widened his eyes as I pulled his face closer to mine with my free hand, and whispered, "You thought wrong."

He shut his eyes in pain and rolled over onto the grass next to me. "Wow. I guess you're right then," he said trying to smile weakly.

"So is the match over?" I asked.

"Well, it's not like I'll be able to do much sword fighting with my right arm stabbed like this," he sighed. "Hey, maybe I could try with my left arm."

"So you're saying I should stab that too?"

"You're a demon," he said laughing. His laugh was rich and beautiful and somehow got me laughing along with him.

Then I remembered his arm. It was bleeding a lot, and he was trying not to cry out from the pain. "Hey! He needs some help!" I called, jumping up from where I had been lying.

The paramedics ran towards us in a hurry and pulled him off into the first aid tent, while the commentator lady announced that I had won. The crowd cheered for me, some very grumpily at losing their money, but it still made me grin like crazy. But deep inside, I was feeling terrified that the Secret Assassination Association would find out that I had drawn such attention to myself, and would get someone to take over the mission. But I couldn't let that happen – I was living the life that I never got to live.

"Now His Highness Prince Takumi shall congratulate the winner with her prize," the woman said with some grandeur in her voice.

It took me a second to realise that it wasn't actually the prince, and that the people standing up in respect were doing that for the imposter. He didn't have the same elegant way of walking and was far too short. His hair was blonde and spiky like Takumi's but his brown eyes were slanting downwards ever so slightly, which was very unlike the real prince. Those bodyguards of his had to be completely blind to not realise that that was not the prince.

His bodyguards collected a massive – and I mean, _massive_ – trophy from one of the judges and handed it to me. I almost dropped of the weight of the thing, even after all that weightlifting I had done in my assassin training days. It was filled to the brim with large gold coins that were so shiny and bright that my eyes almost started watering, just looking at it.

After that ceremony, when everyone was leaving, the maids ran down the steps and tackled me down in a hug. "Fucking god, Misaki, you were amazing!" Honoka screamed, forgetting that she was pretending that she hated me.

"Language!" Satsuki sang cheerfully. "But yes, Misa-chan, you were brilliant!"

"How did you get so good at fighting?" Subaru asked curiously.

Everyone went silent while my mind went wild. "My dad was in the army, so I learnt a load of stuff," I lied as smoothly as possible. Well, it wasn't exactly a lie. Up until I was eleven, my dad had tried to teach me stuff. The most I ever learnt was saluting. With my hand the wrong way around.

They seemed to believe it. "Oh, that must explain it," Subaru nodded. "Well, it's six o'clock now. Let's go back now. It's almost dinner and Hinata says he'll try to cook something good today."

The others cheered while I bit my lip uncertainly. "Actually, I think I'm going to check up on, um, Kuuga-kun. He's, uh, my friend. And I want to gloat about winning. You guys take the gold back to the palace and I'll just show off the trophy to him."

"Wow, you're mean," Erika laughed and they each took a bit of the gold and headed off, after making me promise that I'd be back in less than two hours.

I peeked into the tent. There were fifteen injured men inside. My eyes immediately went to the blonde in the corner, who was being tended to by a pretty doctor. His arm had been bandaged up now.

When I entered the tent, there were many middle fingers, swear words and even a sock being thrown at me, by the other competitors. Jealous idiots. I ignored them, tossing my hair indignantly, and strode straight to Takumi's corner.

"Look what I won," I told him, smugly pointing at the gold trophy.

"Very nice. But I thought you said you weren't going to talk to me when you won?"

I scowled. Great, now I seemed like an idiot. "No, I said you couldn't talk to me unless I talked to you. There _is_ a difference."

He smirked, just like always. "Smartass. I don't see much of a difference."

I smiled back. "Dumbass. There _obviously_ is."

"Nah."

"Yeah, there is!"

The doctor, who had been staring at Takumi excruciatingly hard, coughed. "You two better stop bickering. It's bad for you while you're recovering."

I raised an eyebrow. "How does a stabbed arm have anything to do with that?"

She looked uncomfortable. "He probably has trauma from the swordfight."

"He doesn't," I told her. "Can we go?"

In the end, she made us stay another two hours.

* * *

"Aha!" she whooped, jumping up and clapping her hands. "I've finally figured out who you look like! The Prince!"

"Oh no," Takumi said in a monotone voice. "What, it can't be."

"No, I'm serious!" she exclaimed. "Your face shape, hair, everything – it's the same! But I did only ever see him once, in the parade."

"Well, that's great," I scowled. "But can we go now?"

"Oh, yes! Sorry for keeping you!" she smiled. After ten minutes of lecturing _me_ , for some reason, about taking care of his bandages, she let us go. It was dark and cold already and we could only see by the dim streetlamps.

"Hey, let's hurry up," I told him quietly. "Satsuki and the others will murder me for being late. Stupid Takumi. You took so long."

He shrugged carefreely. "Not my fault. I didn't ask for you to wait for me. Why did you do it?"

I blushed, hoping that he couldn't see me in the dark. "I was there so that the image of the trophy, and my victory, could properly seep into your mind. Not because of anything else."

"Pshh. Alright."

I smacked him playfully on his arm. "Hey! I mean it! And let's go this way. It's probably faster." I tightened my hand around his wrist and dragged him through a dark street that cut through to the main street, rather than going around the wider roads.

It was longer than I thought. The network of thin dark streets just kept going on, snaking through the big chunk of smoky black buildings. We walked in silence, with my hand still wrapped around his. It wasn't until a few minutes later when I stopped and realised that we weren't going in the right direction anymore.

"Hey, we've gone the wrong turn," I told him quietly. He nodded.

"Let's go back," he agreed, and we turned. But someone big, tall and silhouetted was blocking our path. Behind him, masses of men filled the width of the alleyway.

"Er…could you guys move out the way?" I asked, trying to be as polite as possible while I wanted to fall asleep right then and there.

"That's a nice bitta gold ya got there," the guy sniggered. "We wouldn't want it to go to waste. Ya know? We'll get some nice money out of it. What do ya say? Hand it over?"

I stared at him. "Are you actually serious?"

"Hand it over. "Ya wouldn't want us to resort to violence, would ya?"

Another guy tapped the leader's shoulder. "Gouda-sama, they might be from the sword fighting tournament. Word on the street is that a girl with brown hair won."

The other guys in the gang started whispering. The leader – Gouda or something – threw his head back and laughed. "Oh, ya don't really think that these posh fools can actually beat all thirty of us? Get the gold. Kill them if you must."

On his order, the gang members charged at us, yelling what sounded vaguely like a battle cry.

"They don't know what they're talking about," I scoffed, laughing anxiously. I puffed out my chest and balled my free fist. "Come on, Takumi, let's fight them."

He grabbed the arm that wasn't holding the trophy, and pulled me into a run, away from the masses of thugs. "Do you really believe you can do it?" he yelled. "You're holding this mass of a trophy, I'm injured. Even if I hold the trophy, and you fight them off, someone will attack me and I won't be able to defend myself. They have weapons and what do we have? Just run!"

I stopped running with him and refused to budge. "I'm not a wimp like you! I can do it!"

Takumi grabbed my shoulders and swivelled my head. He stared deep into my eyes and spoke slowly and loudly. His eyes were completely serious, for once. "Misaki Ayuzawa, I am not being a wimp, I'm facing reality. If you don't move right now, _we will both die_. "

"I can do it!" I replied, shoving him with my free hand.

"I'll let you do it if you really are ready to die," he said with a straight face. No smirk. "But, ask yourself, what have you done in your short lifetime? Are you ready to go without having done anything? Without having acquired freedom, without a nice job or a family? I know you aren't the type to waste your life like that."

"Shut up!" I screamed in utter humiliation at my stupid cowardice.

He pulled me so hard that I was forced to run. "Come on."

This time I ran with him with all my heart. The gang was hot on our heels, snarling and growling at us. We ran and turned one direction or another, until I almost crashed into smoky grey bricks. I cursed. Dead end.

It was darker than ever here. I was alright because I had specially trained my eyes for night vision, but I heard the thugs far before I saw them. They were panting from all that running, unlike the two of us. _Stop smiling, stupid, this really isn't the time to be feeling proud,_ I thought, and almost slapped myself in frustration.

"Well, well," sneered Gouda. "You're trapped now. Hand it over, and we'll spare your lives."

"Do you think we're stupid?" I replied.

I heard Takumi sigh next to me. "Stubborn as a mule, aren't you? Then we'll just have to find another way to get out of this."

I got what he was hinting at and stared at the wall, looking for something to grasp onto, and found a hole. It was small, but it was enough. I stuffed three fingers inside and pulled myself up. Then one foot swung up to grasp the top of the wall awkwardly. I yanked my fingers out of the hole, wincing in pain, and clutched the top with that hand.

"They're getting away!" someone yelled.

One of the thugs grabbed the ankle of the leg that hadn't swung up yet. My other leg was pulled down too. I kicked his nose, which made him scream out, but another person grabbed my other leg and pulled hard. My grip was strong, but the brick I was holding was loose. I was slipping down, and away from Takumi who was already standing on the top. He tried to grab my hand to pull me up but I refused his help.

I bit the handle of the trophy, tasting the metallic gold with disgust, and reached out with my now free hand to grab the wall. Then I grabbed the loose brick and threw it somewhere in the crowd of thugs.

"My eye!" someone roared in pain.

"Gouda-sama!" the others exclaimed. The grip on my leg loosened and the person scurried off to help his wounded leader.

"After them! We need the gold!" the leader yelled, but it was too late. I had swung my legs over the wall and jumped down on the other side. We landed on another dark and dingy street.

There was no time to think. They were already getting over the wall, probably climbing on each other. We hurried down this road and turned left. There was an unstable-looking, wooden bridge in front, over a fast moving, wide river that was walled on the sides. And there was no choice other than to cross the bridge in front of us, since there was no other road to turn onto.

The thugs were right behind us. Without a second thought, I ran onto the bridge. To my surprise, Takumi grabbed my hand.

"Do you want to test how good their swimming is?" he said with a smirk, and jumped off the bridge, pulling me down with him.

I screamed as my body hit the cold, gushing water. There were no sharp rocks in sight and the water seemed rather clean, but it was deep – too deep to touch the bottom – and we were being pulled along the river before I could even register my panic.

And you ask why I was so panicked? Because I, uh, couldn't swim.

I screamed and flailed in the water. I found Takumi's warm hand and grasped it, panting in terror, and threw my arms around his neck.

"What the hell are you doing?"

I realised that this kind of behaviour wasn't exactly _normal_ for me. Usually, I would rather die than ask for his help. "Can't your pea sized brain realise that I can't swim?" I screamed into his ear while he cringed away from me. "Why didn't I get a say in this dumb plan of yours?"

He cracked up. "What kind of assassin can't swim?"

Well, he had a point. But I could never say that. "It's not my fault! I did have swimming lessons once, but I was so bad that they decided it would be a waste of time. There are no rivers or lakes in Miyabigaoka anyway, and they probably forgot that I couldn't swim, when they sent me here! S-so don't you dare let go of me."

The bridge was already barely a speck in the distance now, but I could hear sloshing behind us which meant that someone was swimming after us, moving faster than we were. It seemed that Takumi had noticed too. I darted around for something to help us and noticed as we were passing under the next bridge that there was a dark area of paving that could probably fit two people if they squeezed together. With a wince, I grabbed a stone on the bridge and pulled myself onto the small area while Takumi did the same for himself. It was a tight squeeze not to fall back onto the river, but it was enough. Our two pursuers looked surprised when they passed us, and unable to swim against the river, they hopelessly stared at us while I smiled back at them sweetly.

"Alright," he whispered. "It's clear." He swung one arm up and grabbed the one side of the stone, arched bridge. Then he pulled himself up onto the bridge. "God, I didn't realise that a sword fighting competition could be this much trouble."

"Agreed," I said, and pulled myself onto the top part of the bridge in the same way. We sat on the bridge for a second before a voice yelled out, ringing out in the night air, "Where are you, little dweebs?"

It was one of the thugs. "Yeah, this is so much trouble," he said again with a sigh, and we ran off the bridge into another set of maze-like streets.

"I saw them!" another voice yelled.

"The idiots are onto us!" I hissed and he pulled me into a very thin, dirty alleyway, and behind a set of bins. The shouting passed where we were hiding, and faded away.

I let out my held breath and my head tipped onto his shoulder without thinking. "Takumi…I'm…tired…I don't want to run anymore." I realised that my head was comfortably resting on his shoulder and pulled away. "I, er, didn't mean to -"

He pushed my head back onto him. "It's fine. Just sleep. I'll tell you if someone finds us."

Just the word _sleep_ made me tired. I yawned and tried to keep my eyes open. But after two blinks of my eyes, they shut. Before I knew it, I was asleep.

* * *

Thanks for reading!


	9. At the Fair

**DISCLAIMER: So…um…still don't own it…**

 **Oh, and sorry this chapter's really late… I've edited and edited this chapter over and over again. I'm not great at fluff and it was full of pointless bickering. Well, not that this chapter isn't full of pointless bickering…**

 **Also,** **OOC ALERT!**

* * *

I woke up to the sound of birds chirping, a voice calling 'Misa-chan', and someone playfully prodding my cheek. I groggily cracked one eye open in irritation and saw a flash of gold immediately in front of me.

I blinked twice and slowly made out a vague face underneath the thick spiky golden locks. It was a nice face. Not just nice. That word could never describe it. This person was really, truly handsome. Those jewel-like eyes. Those enticing lips. Was I still asleep? Was I still dreaming? I forgot about the poking of my cheek, and absentmindedly lifted both of my hands to cup his face.

The poking stopped. I felt his hand drop to his side and his amused eyes changed to an expression of surprise.

It was that moment when I realised our situation. I was lying with my back against a grimy alleyway wall. He was leaning over me, his body basically pinning mine down, and his face so very close to mine. And of course, my hands were cupping his face. Takumi's face.

What a great way to wake up.

 _Idiot, idiot, idiot, idiot, idiot, idiot, idiot,_ _idiot, idiot, idiot, idiot, idiot, idiot,_ _idiot, idiot, idiot, IDIOT. Seriously._

I quickly removed my hands, clamped my eyes shut, silently cursed my very existence, and waited for my blush to go away while internally freaking out. This was possibly one of the most embarrassing moments of my entire life.

I did not just do that.

Was I actually about to kiss him? Was I seriously that much of an idiot?

It was okay. I could still fix my mistake. Maybe. Hopefully.

Just pretend it never happened.

"Good morning, T-Takumi," I said, giving my most realistic cheerful face. He stared at me like I was mad. No, of course. I would never say something so happy if he was literally on top of me. "OH MY GOD, GET OFF OF ME, YOU PERVERT!" I screamed.

He eyed me warily. "You just…"

"I DID NOT."

His lips curved into a smirk. "You were going to kiss me, weren't you?"

"I was going to do no such thing. I was only curious about your skin. By the way, it's very soft."

Why not drop in a compliment in too.

"Why thank you. You have great skin too."

"Oh. Thanks."

Did my plan work?

"But Misa-chan was going to kiss me!" he teased.

"I WAS NOT! And it's not like I would want to kiss you anyway. I haven't brushed my teeth or anything."

" _That's_ your reason?"

"N-no, didn't I say I wasn't going to anyway?"

Goddamn hormones. As if this mission wasn't hard enough already. That's why you don't send a seventeen year old girl who has been seriously deprived of any kind of fun on a mission this important. Stupid idiots.

* * *

"Oh, look! That's the fair." He pointed in the direction of a grassy area full of colourful stalls as we passed through the town back to the castle.

"Mhm."

"Do you want to go?"

"Did you not hear me before?" I said with a huff. "We've got to go. Like, back to the palace. I am five hours late to work. It's already past midday. I'll probably be fired. Come on, let's just go to the palace." I tried tugging him in that direction, but he wouldn't budge however hard I pulled him. I almost cried out in irritation.

"You know," he said with a smirk, "if you're already five hours late, ten minutes more would barely make a difference."

I turned in his direction and sighed. "That's a terrible way of thinking. How are you meant to achieve anything in life, if you think like that?"

Takumi shrugged. "Does it matter? The point is, if you're already here, and you're already late, it'd be a waste not to go. You might not get another chance. And plus, all this stuff is for my birthday, so you know you want toooo ~"

"…Fair point. I'll go."

"About my birthday? Wow, Misa-chan."

"No, idiot," I said, glaring at him.

If I had been with anyone else, I would probably already be at the palace, long ago. Hell, I would have avoided this whole mess because I wouldn't have been provoked to win that goddamn competition.

I sighed. Oh well.

* * *

Five minutes later, I found myself perched on the edge of a bench, staring at the pink cloud of sugar on a stick that I was holding in my right hand.

"Takumi, please tell me how this is meant to be food."

He glanced up from his own candy floss, looked at me and then looked down at the thing in my hand. "If you can eat it, it's food."

I snorted. "Yeah, and you can eat paper, but it's not food."

"It's a matter of opinion. If you haven't eaten anything for two weeks and you're starving to death, paper is probably rather tasty."

"Yes," I replied with a frown, "but it's not food."

He sighed. "Rice paper is food. And you're just being fussy."

"Am not."

"Are too.

"But it's pink. And it's just so fluffy."

"Just eat it already," he said. His hand came out of nowhere. The last thing I saw was his smirking face, before the cloud of pink sugar hit my face. Well, you can't really say 'hit'. 'Hit' implies that it hurt. This was more like a bit of fluff got stuck on you, except it was a lot of fluff, and it was sticky. Really sticky.

For a few seconds, I wasn't quite sure whether I was laughing or crying.

"…Takumi," I mumbled through the pinkness.

"Mmhmm?"

"I hate you."

He started laughing and he reached over again. "Here, I'll get it off you." There was some fumbling, but it was still on my face.

"What happened?" I asked when he stopped moving.

"Erm, the stick fell off the candy floss."

I facepalmed, before remembering the sugar on my face, and then obviously immediately regretted it. "Are you doing this on purpose?"

"Did you forget that you stabbed me?"

"Ah. Yes. Uhmm. That. I was having a serious tsundere moment. Sorry about that."

"Alright, I'll get it off you." A couple of moments later, I could still feel chunks of it on my face, but I could see again. Takumi had piles of it in the palms of his hands and had an expression of deep thought as he looked at them. "Misa-chan, do you want to eat this?" he asked, gesturing at it.

"I'd rather not, thanks," I replied.

He nodded and went to chuck them away in the nearby bin. "What a waste."

"And whose fault is that?" I asked with a dry smile.

"Not mine. If you hadn't stabbed me, I wouldn't have felt the urge to do smush it onto your face, so much."

"Good point, but if you hadn't shown up to the competition, I wouldn't have stabbed you."

"Ah, but if you hadn't been ignoring me, I wouldn't have signed up, would I?"

"I wasn't ignoring you, you were ignoring me! And I wouldn't have been 'ignoring' you if you hadn't kissed me!"

"…"

"…"

I blushed.

"I wouldn't have kissed you if you hadn't been so idiotic about us. Erm, I mean, well, probably."

I sighed inwardly. I was almost hoping that this stupidity was going to end there. "I was only being 'idiotic' because you were being even more idiotic."

He smiled wryly. "I'll let you win this one before it gets even more ridiculous."

"Good idea."

"Hey, we should get the rest of this gunk off you."

"Also a good idea."

I stayed silent while he picked or wiped the rest of the pink stuff off me. "All done. Shame you didn't get to eat any. It really was yummy."

"And whose fault is that?'

"I'm not going into this again. Do you want to get another?"

"Not if you're going to do that again, thank you very much. I can still feel sticky stuff all over my face."

"I have sticky stuff all over my hands and I'm not complaining."

"Fine then. I'll get one."

"I'll be a gentleman and pay for that."

I spun around to face him with my hands on my hips and glared at him angrily. "No, you don't need to do that. I don't consider it gentlemanly if it's not your money. You didn't earn that."

He smiled lazily at me. "It's better than your money, which you earned from killing people."

Huh. That was actually a valid argument. I stared into his emerald eyes even harder. He didn't seem intimidated at all, strangely enough. If I tried, I could send a grown man squealing. But he just smiled back with the same irritatingly smug smile. "Well, at least my money is made from my blood, sweat and tears. Unlike yours which is made from your people's money collected into taxes, while you sit around and do nothing."

"Fine, I'll just get a job then."

My eyes widened. "Takumi, you don't need to -"

"No," he interrupted. "You were right. I can't actually start formal education for being a king, until I'm the crown prince. It's a messed up law. It's something about some agreement with some allied countries, saying that only one person at any given time can be fully prepared to be the ruler. So I'm just wasting my time sitting around and doing nothing. Besides, if you're not going to accept any gift I give you, I might as well, right?"

"It's okay," I said quickly. "You don't need to get any gifts for me. I'm fine with what I've got."

He looked at me with slightly raised eyebrows. "You're fine with your granny panties? Alright…"

My face flushed red in a record time. "HOW DO YOU KNOW ABOUT MY GRANNY PANTIES!?" I screamed, earning several baffled looks from the people around us.

"You know that time you caught me in your room, going through your underwear drawer?" he asked. I paused and nodded slowly. "Well, that, and all the other times."

"OTHER TIMES?" I bellowed. I didn't even care about the weird looks anymore. "WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY 'OTHER TIMES'?"

"What? I only did it two or three…or maybe four…or five…well, actually, uh, seven times…"

"Seven times…" I mumbled, growing more and more irritated by the second. "So what about my granny panties? They're comfortable and they're more suitable for my job than, say, a G-string or something!"

"Alright, alright. It doesn't really make much of a difference," he muttered, and then smiled evilly and quietly said something that sounded awfully like, _"because it all comes off anyway,"_ but I chose to ignore that.

"Come on," I said, jumping up from the bench. "Let's go back. That was probably much longer than five minutes."

"You're not getting candy floss?"

"No time. Come on."

He got up with a sigh and we resumed our walk back to the palace. It wasn't much of a walk though, because I was dragging him with my hand wrapped around his wrist tightly. By the time we got to the palace, it was probably half past twelve. That was good, because most people would be at lunch right now and I might not be noticed. It was also really not good, because that would mean that Satsuki, the person in charge of me, would be in there. I tiptoed up the servants' stairs while he walked rather leisurely up, without a care.

When we reached the top, where it connected out to the servants' quarters and to the main three floors, we stopped. "I guess this is goodbye," I said with a smile.

"Goodbye? It's not like I'm never going to see you again."

"Hah. I might be fired."

"Yes, you may be," a voice boomed, from the hall. I jumped in shock while Takumi exhaled deeply.

This was not good.

Not good at all.

* * *

 **I'm really sorry this chapter is shorter than the rest...**

 **And a shout-out to Zoo E. Turtle, because that was one of longest and most hilarious reviews I have ever gotten! It made me so happy! I was fangirling so much when you said you liked my profile picture (because of course, nothing beats Ciel in a dress).**

 **So yeah. I hope you liked this chapter! Reviews are always good *hints shamelessly* And we hit 4500 views :D so thank you!**


	10. Oops

**(Side note over here for Zoo E. Turtle - OMG OMG Yes. Ciel in a dress is amazing. You probably won't ever see this because it has been over a month... but anyway (just because you asked so this doesn't look insanely creepy) I live in London in England, what about you? And you should get an account here on fanfiction so I can PM you rather than awkwardly try and talk to you where my story's meant to be...)**

 **Sorry I haven't updated this story for ages... I've kind of been lazy and stupid and writing the other stupid story. And I just read through the first few chapters of this and I was seriously cringing a lot...**

 **Anyway, I hope you think this chapter is good! Or at least that my writing style has improved a bit.**

* * *

I surveyed the room. It was completely and utterly empty, except a dark polished mahogany table that wasn't usually there, a man who seemed to be too well dressed to be here, six footmen all in black, looking terrified, and Satsuki who was nervously biting her nails. I caught Satsuki's eye, and she shot me an apologetic look.

"Didn't I tell you to stay away from my brother?" Gerald inquired, pacing the room with an expression of elegant exasperation.

I stood awkwardly by the doorway, shuffling my feet. "You did, Master Gerald," I nodded. "Sorry."

He looked up at me and sighed. "Where did you get the trophy?" he asked, gesturing at the massive gold trophy in my arms.

"I won it."

" _You_ won it?" His expression changed to one of amusement. "May I ask how?"

I frowned at him. "You think he bought it for me, don't you?"

He shrugged.

I inhaled deeply. "Don't you?" I said with a more accusatory tone in my shaking voice.

He shrugged again. "He's got the money to get something that big and expensive."

"What do you think I am?" I demanded. "A prostitute?"

Technically, I was a killer and that was probably much worse than a prostitute. But it wasn't like I was going to suddenly pop that into the already heated conversation.

"You're a maid. Servants in this palace have a tendency to try and catch our attention. That's why most of them come here. It's not like the pay is all that spectacular. It's not all that different to a show girl." He paused, and flipped the pack of paper in his hands. "Besides, you're from Miyabigaoka. The peasants in that country are desperate for money; I suppose you came here to try and get a prince to marry you because Prince Tora over there is far too cruel to even think of wedding a peasant. In addition, my younger brother has always been a fool. Even more so, to let such a pitiful little thing like you seduce him."

My fists clenched without me even intending for it to. "That alien is not a fool. He isn't stupid. He's weird, yes, but definitely not stupid. Don't you dare call him a fool. He knows the difference between those who try and seduce him and those who don't. And I definitely fall into the category for the people who aren't gold-digging idiots."

"Do you? Do you really?"

"I do."

"Then why have you disobeyed my orders and continued to follow my brother around?"

I frowned. "Since when was it that a girl and a guy can't be friends? If Takumi was a girl – I don't really want to imagine that – then you would probably have no issues with me hanging out with him, would you?"

"Are you saying that you have no romantic interest in my brother?"

"W-Well," I said, beginning to stammer, "I'm n-not exactly saying that but I'm saying I d-do, either -"

"Do you or do you not want to become his wife?"

I jumped. "Y-Your Highness, isn't that a little sudden?"

He glared darkly at me. "It's all that these girls want these days, anyway. Hmm, about the fact that you stayed overnight in an unknown place in the city alone with him. I suppose you two were probably at a hotel last night. After you did your thing, he gave you the gold as payment. Didn't he?"

I slammed my fists down on the mahogany table in front of me, in frustration. My anger took over my embarrassment and the stammer disappeared, thankfully. "I am not that cheap, I did no seducing of any kind, and I won that freaking trophy from a freaking competition! One that you probably organised. Look at the trophy. It says, very clearly at the bottom, 'First Place Winner of Royal Sword Fighting Tournament'. And there was no hotel involved in this whatsoever. You could check all the hotels in the city, and you wouldn't find our names in a single check-in book. We slept in an alleyway and I did not sleep with him. I mean, I slept _with_ him but didn't _sleep_ with him."

He placed his hands on the opposite side of the table and leaned forward intimidatingly, mirroring me. "Oh, you let a prince sleep in an alleyway?" he murmured, a sinister smile creeping up on his face like he was saying 'checkmate'. "Someone could have seen you two and figured out he's the second prince, the one having his eighteenth birthday in two weeks. Now if that person disliked our family for any reason, he would only be a slit on the neck away from death. You are a servant of the royal family and therefore it is your duty to protect us at all costs. You've greatly endangered a member of the royal family, you know. That's equal to treason. And treason earns a…"

The prince lifted his hands off the table and tightened them around his own neck, sticking his tongue out and spinning his eyeballs up so that his light blue irises could barely be seen. His face distorted to look like he was gasping for air. I couldn't control my shivers.

He was imitating someone being hanged.

He regained his usual composure and smiled at me. "Looks like that's where you're heading."

Panic surged through my body. I can escape the hanging, easily. The guards at this palace could be replaced with a sack of potatoes and it wouldn't make a single difference. But the problem is, I can't leave, not while this mission is uncomplete. I can't go back to headquarters until my mission is done. They would deem me useless and send one of the other assassins against me. It would be impossible for me to escape that.

And, a tiny, tiny part of my heart longed to stay here in this new life I had made for myself…

"You're just out to get me, aren't you?" I hissed, banging my fists on the table again. "If I was anyone else, you wouldn't have a problem with me."

"I only have a problem with you," he replied, leaning forward again, "because you won't stay away from him."

"Why should I? I have no such reason to."

"Your reason is your life, isn't it? Don't you care about your life?"

"You're right," I retorted. "I don't care about my life. Not a bit. It's all worthless and stupid. But what I care about is the people around me. If I die, I don't know what will happen to my family. And Takumi. I don't know a thing about love and I don't know if I'm in love with him or if he's in love with me, but if there's anything I understand about him –" I slammed my fists again "- it's how lonely he is. It's suffocating here in the palace. It's like a cage. Like he's just there for show. He told me about his past and your mother and all that's happened. He doesn't have anyone to talk to. No wonder he's so weird and messed up. He needs someone. A friend. A companion. And I'm willing to be that person because I, without doubt, do care about him. I'm not only looking for romance or money. I just want to be there for him."

Gerald's face brightened. "That's not a bad idea, maid. I have noticed across the years, that he seems a little bit abnormal. Maybe it would be a good idea for him to have a companion."

I smiled. "Thank you, sir. You really are a kind man."

He chuckled. "I'd rather not be called 'kind'. Instead, I'd like to be called a great businessman." His face then sobered up. "And, did you think I meant you?"

"Erm, n-no, of course not."

"I was rather thinking that, as he is almost eighteen now, I should find him a wife." Gerald paused. "What do you think, maid?"

My eyes widened. My mouth hung open. The world crushed down on me. No…this couldn't be happening. " _What_?" I gasped.

"You heard me, maid. I think it's time for my little brother to get married."

"No…" I muttered. "I didn't mean that. He doesn't need a wife."

"He certainly does. He is going to be king one day; he needs an heir. Why not start a little bit early?"

I slammed my hands on the table again. "He's not getting married. He's only eighteen."

He gave me a smug smirk. "Getting a little defensive, aren't you?"

I went a shade of red normally considered inaccessible to the normal seventeen year old girl. "I am not getting defensive about _that_. I'm just saying, uh, well, why aren't you married or even engaged, if you're so intent on Takumi getting a wife? Aren't you, what, thirty? Shouldn't you think about your own marriage before Takumi?"

His blue eyes narrowed. "For your information, I am twenty-one. That's a big difference from thirty. And I have really gotten rather bored of this thread of pointless conversation. You really think you, a mere servant, can argue with me, a royal? Our classes are far too different. I'm at the top of the social pyramid. You're at the bottom. I have power. You have none. You cannot even think of arguing with me. I can make things happen to you that you can't even dream of…"

A new person walked into the room leisurely. He had probably been hovering around the door this whole time, knowing him. The fact that he might have been listening all this time didn't even cross my mind. "Perhaps she can't argue with you. But I can."

Gerald didn't look bothered by that. "Nice of you to join us, brother. But I'm older and I'm the first prince. You're the second. I'm more powerful than you. Grandfather will listen to me over you."

Takumi looked even less bothered. "I think a second prince plus a parlour maid win against a first prince who'll die within three months without ever becoming the king."

The few servants in the room widened their eyes. I cringed, took a large step back and raised my hands defensively as if I was apologising for him.

Gerald narrowed his eyes. "Are you making fun of the fact that I'm dying? How immature of you, little brother."

"I think it's quite immature of you to believe that a girl who was with me was only with me because she had seduced me. And not to believe her when she said she won that trophy herself, simply because she was with me. Misaki's a perfectly able woman."

The two went on to have an intense staring match across the table. By that point I had put my face in my hands in exasperation.

Gerald lifted his hands off the table first and straightened his back. "Hmm. Touché. What do you propose happens to her, then?"

"She goes free."

The older brother chuckled. "That's impossible. I've already gave her a warning."

Takumi paused in thought. Then he caught my eye and smiled slightly, then turned back to Gerald. "She goes free. Still."

Gerald gave him a stony look. "Stop letting emotions get in the way of law. I don't care what you feel for the girl. If you don't want me to give the orders for a public hanging right here and now, do this properly. How about starting with life imprisonment for treason?"

"She goes free."

"Twenty years in prison."

"She goes free."

"Twenty years or she dies."

Takumi sighed. "How about she just gets fired? With a month's notice, of course."

"Ten years in prison."

"Fired with three weeks' notice."

"Five years in prison."

"Fired with two weeks' notice and banished all the way back to Miyabigaoka. You'll never see her again. You won't even need to pay for her prison food and living needs."

The older of the two laughed. "That's a good offer, I suppose. We don't want to be paying for her every need for however long we want. Though it would be simpler to give her a morning appointment at the gallows, don't you think."

Takumi growled. "You'll have to go through me first."

Gerald sighed. "We don't want to upset you too much, brother. You might refuse kingship." He laughed softly and turned to me, straightening his face up instantly. "Maid, you have two weeks left here."

* * *

 **Tell me if you found any mistakes or anything. And please review! They always help! ^^**


	11. Liar, Liar, Pants On Fire

**Hi! It's been a like a month since I updated either of my fanfics. Sorry. Especially to anyone who reads Masquerade, that's actually been over two and a half months. I keep trying to write that but no matter how much editing I do I can never seem to make it even a tiny bit amusing like the other chapters. It's kind of really really lame and stupid and unfunny and I'm not happy with the draft for chapter 5...I mean, of course I'll eventually update but I don't really know when I can. So, um, sorry about that.**

 **Thank you to everyone who followed or favorited or reviewed the previous chapter. It really means a lot to me :) I would usually reply via PM but since you don't have an account, thank you to all the guest reviewers because they are all really sweet :D**

 **Please enjoy the next chapter :D**

* * *

After I reluctantly signed the document, Takumi was whisked off back to his bedroom for his studying that he had skipped for the past few days, without another look at me other than a small, slightly apologetic smirk. I returned that with a grateful smile. He didn't have a single thing to be sorry about. He had earnt me two weeks left, and that was enough. Enough to have a few more happy memories here, and enough time to do my job.

Satsuki, after they had left, burst into tears. "Misa-chaaaan, I'm so sorry I didn't do anything! I should have said something like how you're such a cute maid and…" she trailed off. It was either because she was too emotionally unstable to continue or that I was such an awful maid that she couldn't think of anything else. I decided to keep thinking that it was the first reason and not the second.

I pulled her into a tight hug. "It's okay," I smiled, patting her back comfortingly. "It's not like you would be able to do much against Master Gerald, anyway. He would probably fire you for taking my side and that wouldn't really do all too much good for either of us, would it?"

"I'm sorry," she repeated, sniffing. "You're such a kind person. You don't deserve this."

"It's seriously okay," I said, not really knowing how to reply to the compliment. "We should probably tell the others, though. Y'know, that I'm leaving."

"Oh, yeah…" She sniffed again and promptly burst into another frenzy of tears. "That's…a good idea…"

"Satsuki, it's okay!" I smiled, squeezing her tighter. "It's not like it'll be too hard for me to leave… I've only been here for about a month or so, right?"

There was a pause in the crying before we both burst into laughter. She wiped her wet eyes with the side of her hand, laughing a bit more. "Yeah, you're right, Misa-chan. It just feels much longer than that, I guess. I don't really know why. I just think you've just made a bit of a difference in all of our lives. I think it's been just a bit more exciting than before. You know, with all the drama that you've created with the prince and all. There hasn't been anything like that since Princess Patricia and Yuu! So…thank you for that."

I couldn't stop smiling and I couldn't stop the tears brimming in my eyes. "Satsuki, I'm not leaving for two more weeks!"

"Yeah, let's enjoy those last weeks, okay?"

"Okay."

"We can skip work to go to tarot readings and we can go to the town square to go for the music and…you'll still be here for the ball on Takumi's birthday…"

"Thanks, Satsuki," I mumbled and pulled Satsuki into another hug.

"Oh, Misaki, I'm going to really miss you," she smiled. "You're a great girl. And you're so cute!"

I couldn't help but feel a pang of guilt for her and my lies. I wondered for a moment how different she would act if she knew I was a top class assassin. I wondered how she would act if she knew that I had killed forty-one men and women. Forty-one people is a lot of life, and it's all been taken by me. She wouldn't think I was nice, or great. And she wouldn't think I was cute. Nobody would ever think someone like me was cute, if they really knew me at all.

For assassins may be cute and cuddly and warm on the exterior, but the best ones are always ice-cold killing machines in the inside.

 _Am I like that?_

If I was to succeed in this mission, I told myself I had to be like that. All ice-cold and emotionless.

Forget about making happy memories.

Forget about Satsuki and Erika and Honoka and Subaru and Aoi and Sakura and Shizuko.

Because, what are friends?

 _Tools._

What is happiness?

 _Success._

What is life?

Loyalty.

What is death?

 _Profit._

What is love?

 _Useless._

What is Takumi?

 _A target._

 _Simply a target._

 _Just a target._

 _Only a target._

And what am I?

 _A killing machine._

 _An emotionless weapon of destruction._

 _Devoid of any feeling._

 _That's what I am._

 _That's what I must be._

I repeated the same questions in my head and forced myself to answer with the same answers every time although the other side of my mind was begging me not to, all though the day. Through the work, the maids' questions about what happened yesterday, dinner, the cleaning, the shower, that was all that I let myself think about. On and on, all night, as I rocked myself to sleep. Just as the Association had taught me.

And that night was the first in a long time where I cried myself to sleep.

But the next morning I woke up more depressed than I had been my whole life. The self-brainwashing hadn't worked. It only made me feel like the shittiest scum on the planet.

I wasn't a killing machine. I wasn't an emotionless weapon of destruction.

I was just, shit. Worse than shit. I was some idiot who had to lie to herself to make her kill.

 _Why am I killing anyway?_

 _What's all this for?_

My family?

But I hadn't seen them in years.

 _What if they weren't even alive anymore?_

"What's the point of life?" I found myself saying out loud.

Erika laughed. "Misaki, don't tell me you're going through an existential crisis."

I was quickly shaken out of the darkness of my thoughts, and I felt my cheeks burn up in embarrassment. "Sorry. I was just thinking out loud," I mumbled. "Stupid, really."

Honoka gasped as she stuck her head into the bottom bunk area. "Misaki, you look awful!"

I peeked at the mirror and visibly cringed at my own appearance. My eyes were bloodshot and puffy with dark circles hanging low underneath, from all the endless crying. The gaunt, skeletal look covering my face wouldn't go away, my nose was cherry red and my hair was more unkempt than ever.

I looked like a nightmare in human form.

"I'm fine, I swear!" I exclaimed before they would worry. "It's just a really big sugar low. I had too much cotton candy yesterday."

They didn't look very convinced but let it pass. "Let's get you cleaned up," Erika said with a kind smile. "Work starts in half an hour."

"Hey guys," I interrupted nervously, "You should probably know –"

"We know that you've only got two weeks left," Subaru said, looking down at her feet. "Satsuki told us this morning."

"Oh. Okay."

Erika sat me on a chair and started to brush my hair. "So. You weren't talking at all yesterday because you were in a horrible mood. So did you or did you not sleep with him last night?"

I frowned. "Uh, yeah, I slept with him. It's not like I could leave him alone." There was a collective gasp in the room.

She leaned forward. "Did you go to an inn?"

"No, it was the street."

"Oooh, dangerous."

Honoka flinched. "It's not dangerous, that's just gross."

My eyes widened. "Oh, I didn't mean that I slept with him, I just slept with him."

Erika frowned. "So there was no sleeping?"

"No, I slept with him, as in, next to him."

"No sex?"

"No!" I squealed, blushing.

They all looked very disappointed.

"Do you like him like him, though?" Erika prompted.

"…No."

 _YES._

 _OH HELL YEAH I DO._

"Oh."

Subaru shrugged. "It's probably better that way, though. It would be harder to leave if you liked him."

"I guess you're right."

"And besides," Honoka said with a big spiteful smile, "that means that it'll all be better for Lady Portia."

Erika shot her a fiery glare. Subaru put her head in her hands. I frowned in bewilderment.

Honoka shrugged. "What? Misaki said she didn't like him like that. And besides, I like Lady Portia. She's always nice to everyone and she's very pretty."

"Honoka, shut up," Erika snapped.

"What?" the blonde glared. "I'm just saying."

"Honoka," Subaru butted in, "you are an idiot."

Both of the other girls fell silent in an instant, but that wasn't too unsurprising given that that was probably the meanest thing Subaru had ever said in her entire life.

"So who's Lady Portia?" I asked awkwardly.

Erika gave Honoka a long, withering look, ignoring my question. "Honoka, a word please?" she hissed, gesturing towards the door. Honoka sighed loudly and flounced outside with Erika storming out behind her.

From inside the room, we could hear a lot of hushed muttering as we sat silently.

"So, uh, who's Lady Portia?" I repeated curiously to Subaru after a few long seconds of silence.

Subaru fidgeted uncomfortably. "Uhmmm, a lady."

"I couldn't have guessed," I said with a bit of grumpy sarcasm in my voice. "No seriously. I said I didn't like Takumi like that. Just tell me."

Subaru fidgeted even more, an awkward smile spreading around her face. "She's no one important."

"Subaru, I literally have a knife tied to my thigh and if you don't tell me, I'm not afraid to use it," I said with a flat expression and voice.

She laughed like I was joking, though that was probably the truest thing I had said all day. "Alright. Alright. If you're really serious that you don't like him…well, she was Gerald's fiancée but he probably won't ever see a coronation before he dies, so…"

I felt my heart swoop downwards and crash on the pit of emptiness. "…she's Takumi's fiancée, isn't she?"

"Yeah. Are you okay?"

I laughed. I felt like punching whoever this chick simply for being in a position a thousand times nicer than mine, but I just _goddamn laughed_ like it was the funniest thing in the world. "Hey, I said I don't like him like that. Why would I be sad?"

 _Yeah, why would I?_

I wished I could stop lying, but for some stupid reason I couldn't bring myself to.

Since when was I such a liar?

At least before, I didn't try to lie to myself.

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 **Please tell me if there were any mistakes or anything. I didn't really read it through because I was kind of really lazy, so this chapter was probably really crappy :| sorry.**


	12. Plans

**I know. I suck. It's been almost three months and I don't have much of an excuse of why I haven't updated other than plain laziness. I'll try to not suck so bad.** **But also I was away from home for three weeks and I failed my exams, so is that enough of an excuse?**

 **Still. Sorry.**

 **Also also I've been nominated for three categories in the 2016 Maid sama fanfiction awards :) so if you like this fic than pls go to violet or angel's profiles and vote for me! Or don't.**

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To say the atmosphere at breakfast at our table was tense would be an understatement. Erika was drilling holes into Subaru's forehead with her fiercest glare, Subaru was fidgeting uncomfortably in her seat, and Honoka was so moody her black aura had leaked out so that everyone in the entire room could feel it in some kind of shape or form. I was feeling awkward about the whole thing.

"You told her," Erika accused.

Subaru fidgeted more. "She kept bugging me about it. And she said she didn't like him in that way. I believe her."

"That's true, I really don't," I added in.

Erika ignored me and leaned across the table and hissed almost inaudibly, "are you an idiot?"

"Erika, shut up," Honoka snapped. "Misaki said she doesn't like him."

"I really don't," I piped in again, but, as expected, the three maids ignored me and continued to bicker among themselves. I sighed loudly and pushed my mushy scrambled eggs around my plate anxiously.

I got mail that morning, which didn't help my gloomy mood much. This time it was only a piece of paper with three words written in big capital letters: WE SENT HELP. In other words, they had sent extra assassins to aid me.

It was all so pointless. I didn't even care anymore. Why was I even in this place? I hadn't thought of killing the King in far too long, and the only thing taking up my thoughts was Takumi; an endless flow of Takumi and his smiles and his laughs and those eyes. Those regal emerald eyes were what I saw when I closed my eyes, seemingly burned into every corner of my mind, and I hated it. He seemed to be stalking me in more ways than one.

I wished I wasn't an assassin more than ever now.

If everything hadn't gone wrong, maybe I would have grown up on a little farm on the edge of Miyabigaoka. I would spend my days picking apples and selling them in town with my little sister, and my parents would teach me everything they knew. I would see everyone I loved every single day and my father would have never started gambling, and I would have stayed on that farm until the day I got married. Maybe I would have fallen in love with that boy in the farm next to ours, just like my parents always thought I would, and we would have a beautiful wedding and live happily ever after together. But now it was impossible to think of a perfect life without a Takumi, yet with Takumi nothing was ever perfect. Nothing was ever going to be perfect.

Because with Takumi came his grandfather, his brother, his _fiancée_ that I didn't even know but couldn't help but despise her. And then there's the fact that I wouldn't have ever met him if it weren't that I was meant to be killing him. The thought of that sickened me. A vivid, vivid image shot through my head – his dead body lying limply on the floor, crimson blood drowning the carpet, a terrible expression frozen on that beautiful face of his. A knife was clenched in my own hands. Despair instantly filled me. What had I done?

 _It's not real_ , I told myself, but my hands were shaking so much that I knocked over my glass of water. The other maids gave me their undivided attention for the first time today, in alarm. "You okay?" Erika asked, her pretty eyes following me as I stood up very suddenly.

"I'm good," I replied in as much as an even voice as I could, and slipped away back to the bedroom, still feeling their gazes on my back.

I had begun to think.

If I didn't kill Takumi, if I didn't kill his brother or his grandfather, if I stayed in Seika forever in peace and lived a normal life as an ordinary maid. If I betrayed my leaders and my country. What would happen then? Nothing would change. I was irrelevant. A pawn. If I didn't do it, someone else would be sent in to do it. Takumi would be the same – dead – only by a stranger's hand. It was no different to if I stabbed him in the heart myself. I had been stupid to even entertain the thought that I didn't need to kill him. Either way, the Association wanted him dead quick. He probably wouldn't even hit his eighteenth birthday by the way things were happening.

I wish I didn't care about him like this, but no matter what I told him I did like spending time with him. He made me happy like no one else had since I was born. I didn't know if what I felt was what they call "love", but I knew that it certainly wasn't fair that he had to die because he was second in line to the rivalling throne of Miyabigaoka. They didn't know anything about him or his gorgeous smile...

 _Misaki. Focus._

If Takumi was to be kept alive for as long possible, it would be good to keep the assassins away for the time being. Maybe they hadn't sent someone yet. Maybe they could hold the person back for a bit. For that to happen, well, I would probably have to kill either Gerald or the King. If I went for Gerald, the King would probably become even more paranoid that somebody was after him and could figure that the killer must have been one of the servants. My mind flickered back to the story Takumi had once told me – only a couple of guards had been guilty, yet the King killed every last one of them. What's to say it wouldn't happen to us? We were just as expendable, since everyone in the country wanted to have this job. We would be replaced just as soon as we were dead.

But if I went for the King, Gerald would have the throne. I didn't like Gerald much at all, and you didn't need to meet him to know that he was going to be a selfish and unjust ruler. But in a few months or years Gerald's disease would take over him and Takumi would be King. But then what's to say that in a few years the Association wouldn't want him dead too?

And of course there's the point that I would be called back to Miyabigaoka since my mission was to kill the King primarily and if I could, kill the others. I would never see my friends again. I would never see Takumi again.

My heart sagged a little when I thought of that.

But it wasn't about me or my feelings. I blocked Takumi's smirking face out of my mind again.

Neither of these options were much good, and of course it was out of the question killing Takumi and killing none of them would only make the Association send in a few more assassins who would kill all three.

No, I wasn't at a dead end. My mind started to tick again.

It didn't require much thinking at all to get to the conclusion that there was another solution.

* * *

"Hi," I said. I was holding a ginormous platter of fried crab that looked and smelt so appetizing that I could barely think straight, but I tapped Satsuki a couple times on the shoulder with the edge of the silver plate to get her attention.

Satsuki turned to look at me. "Hello – have you been crying?" she said and then noticed my puffy eyes.

I looked away, embarrassed. "No," I mumbled. "Can I ask you a question?"

She smiled. "Of course."

"Is there any way that I can talk to the King?" I bit my lip nervously. "Alone?" I had asked the same question to all the maids and some of the footmen, but they laughed and told me that I could never get into a room alone with that paranoid old sod in my wildest dreams.

Satsuki shook her head. "He's a very busy man," she replied. "And even if you could speak to him, there would obviously be guards."

"How many?" I asked without thinking.

"Maybe ten?" she said with some thought. My heart sank. I was a skilled fighter but it was impossible to take out that many trained guards and then go for the King before he called for reinforcements. "It depends what situation the meeting would be. If it was a political meeting there would be more than thirty, but if he was meeting a friend there would be only about five – why do you want to know?"

"No reason," I muttered. "What about Gerald?"

"What about him?"

"If I wanted to meet him alone."

Satsuki gave me a look of pity, looking like she wanted to give me a big hug like she always did, if I wasn't carrying a giant platter of crab. "Is this about you getting dismissed from your job?"

It would be better if she thought that. "Yeah. Maybe."

"I don't think Gerald would give you back your job even if you begged for it. I'm sorry, Misaki-chan." She looked as if she would cry again, and patted my shoulder lightly. "Your crab is cold. You better get the cook to redo it."

The cook wasn't very happy when I told him I hadn't delivered the dish because I'd been standing around chatting to someone for too long, but he redid it and made me wait there against the wall as he did it. It was hot and stuffy in the kitchen, and I found I kept having to loosen my maid corset because it was simply too hot to stay in there for too long. I knew I didn't look like the most attractive girl in the world right now because I could feel sticky sweat all over me, and I wanted nothing more than to have a nice cold shower. But the time ticked by and the cook, I realised, was purposely dragging it out so that I would get into tons of trouble when I delivered it late. Petty, but I would be annoyed too if I spent an hour making a pretty impressive platter of crab just for it to be ruined by a dumb maid. He finally handed it to me grudgingly, telling me that I better run up those stairs and get it to the guest while it's still hot.

I _was_ sprinting up the stairs at the speed of light, but I wasn't taking too much care to not bump into anyone because the palace was pretty empty at this point of the day so I didn't expect that when I turned a very sharp corner on the second floor –

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" I squealed, trying to keep my voice down. But the crab flew out my hands and up and over someone's head.

"AAAAAAAH," something said flatly. Very flatly.

My head spun, but I concentrated on her. She was definitely dressed as a maid, one of the much lower ranked ones by the way she was dressed. I focused in on her face. It was beautiful, fresh and young, and she had short dark hair tied into loose pigtails. And her eyes. Her eyes were so familiar it scared me. Amber. Like mine.

Recognition flooded me. "Suzuna," I whispered.

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 **Pls try to review but I know that if you reviewed on my hiatus notice (that I deleted) then you probably can't...but thanks for reading. It means a lot to me :)**


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